Fearful of the Night
by Cy Mendoza
Summary: When Team Skull grunts steal Chip's starter pokemon, his RotomDex promises to protect him and becomes his new partner. But how can Chip and Rotom face the island trials when Rotom is afraid to battle and Chip can't stand the dark? (Ch 13: Have you ever drowned...?)
1. Chapter 1: Welcome to Alola

**FEARFUL OF THE NIGHT**

By: Cy Mendoza

* * *

 **CHAPTER 1**

 _WELCOME TO ALOLA_

The sparkling lights of Hau'Oli City welcomed an eleven-year-old boy as he stepped off the ship and onto the dock. His wide amber eyes gazed around in amazement at the palm trees clustered around the marina, each lit by the fiery tones of the sun or silhouetted against that orange sky. All around him was an endless stretch of beach that disappeared into the steadily growing night.

A small group of locals had gathered at the dock, watching the ship's passengers disembark from the vessel. Some of them dashed up to meet them, as many of the passengers were transient visitors, here to enjoy a vacation with friends or family. Within the crowd was a tall man in a white lab coat, a contemplative look on his face as he scanned the traffic on the dock. Accompanying him was a small brown and white puppy that sat at his feet, its tail twitching back and forth.

When he spotted the freckled boy, the man in the lab coat strolled up toward him, the puppy following close behind. "Alola!" He waved his hands in a gentle movement over his head. "I think you're the youngest passenger here, cousin!"

"Oh! You must be Professor Kukui," the boy said, brushing his blond hair out of his face with a smile. He moved out of the way of other passengers behind him, pulling his luggage with. He'd brought all of his most important possessions with him, which had amounted to one small suitcase. The rest he'd left at home, a home that he wouldn't have been able to stay in anyway. When his older brother disappeared to the Alola Islands, rent payments evaporated with his departure. He knew it was only a matter of time before he had to leave. He'd taken it as a sign that he was meant to follow his brother to Alola… and boarded the next ship to the islands with all the money he'd saved up.

"And you're Chip, right?" The professor came to a halt in front of the boy and looked him over with a welcoming smile.

"That's me," he said, leaning against his suitcase a little. The cruise had been long, and he hadn't slept well, as the rocking sensation had made him feel a bit ill. Chip was thankful to have his feet on solid ground now. "Um, thanks for talking to Professor Oak about my situation… it means a lot that you're willing to help."

"It's fine, cousin. Oak's worried about you—actually, I think he'd really love if you called him from my lab when we get back there. I'm sure he'll want to hear how your voyage was, and that you're here safely! Speaking of Oak... when we get back to the lab, there's something I'd like to give you. I think the kahuna will give you your first pokemon tomorrow, after you've had some time to settle in, but that doesn't mean we can't get started with preparing you for your journey, right? I think Oak mentioned you wanted to find your brother?"

Chip tilted his head, curious about what Kukui planned to give him. "I do want to find my brother. I just don't know where to start… he didn't tell me where he went, just that he'd gone to the Alola Islands. I don't even know what island he's on… and, um, if you don't mind me asking, what's a kahuna?"

The professor laughed. "Oak was supposed to give you your first pokemon, right? He'd mentioned offhand that none of his eggs were close to hatching when you were getting ready to leave, which means you'll get your first pokemon here in Alola. Those are given out by the island kahunas."

Chip blinked in confusion. "Not professors?"

"No—though... hm. It'll be a little different for you. Here, you'll see—we'll be back at the lab in about twenty minutes."

True to the professor's word, in about a half hour, Chip spotted what he assumed was the lab just past an incline. He scuttled down the hill beside the professor as they drew closer to the rickety-looking house. It was old, made of wood, probably built about thirty years ago from what Chip could see. It needed a lot of work, as the roof was missing shingles, and the door hung slightly ajar. The windows were patched up with duct tape, but it was a quaint sort of place with a homely feeling and its own special brand of charm.

"Sorry ahead of time for the mess, cousin," the professor said as he approached the door. "I'm always in the middle of researching pokemon moves, and it tends to wreck the place. Even with Lillie as my lab assistant, it gets messy around here. I think she just can't keep up with me!"

"I'm sure it's not that bad," Chip said. "I think my room at home was worse."

"You haven't seen the inside yet," the professor said with a laugh, opening the door and gesturing for Chip to step in.

Chip glanced around as he entered the building. A huge tank in the back corner of the room immediately drew his gaze. Luvdiscs floated up and down, as if the aquarium took up both the ground floor and the basement below. As the blond walked further inside, he saw the aquarium did take up both levels, which explained why the professor had mentioned an aquarium smell in the basement. To the left, Chip noticed the loft, as well as a small kitchen. Boxes littered the floor, and more boxes had been stacked on tables randomly spread throughout the home. There was an odd sort of organization to the chaos, as if every stack of disheveled papers had been placed in a particular pile for a reason.

"This is more of my living quarters," Kukui said, quickly picking up a couple of dishes from the nearest table and moving them into the kitchen sink. "The basement is where the lab is, and it's also where you'll be going! But okay, where did I put that package from Clemont…"

As the professor checked the multiple packages strewn about the house, Chip watched the pokemon running around the premises. Rockruff had immediately left the professor's side to play with a polywag, and a silvery-gray meowth watched the two with relative disinterest from the height of the loft. Chip was about to ask why the meowth's fur was gray when the professor let out a noise of satisfaction and moved a box to the table.

"Ah, here it is! I should've looked for the electric-themed packing tape in the first place… anyway, Chip, are you familiar with the PokeDex? I'm sure Oak has told you about his invention before, right?"

"Hm? Oh yeah, he's mentioned it," Chip said, trotting over. He nearly tripped over Rockruff as the puppy dashed past him, the poliwag chasing after it. "Everyone in Kanto knows about the PokeDex, though they're really rare. Only the children of champions and rich families usually get them, because they're more likely to go everywhere in Kanto and fill it up… most people can't afford a journey like that. That's what my brother said, at least."

"They're rare here too," Kukui said as he pulled a deep red-colored machine from the box. He unwrapped the packing from it, setting styrofoam aside. "This is the Alola PokeDex, Chip. It's rare because it's the only one that's been manufactured, since its inventor is still working out the kinks. He's a lovely boy, that Clemont, but he has a gym to run so he can't always focus on the project. About a week ago, he sent me this prototype."

The professor held the PokeDex out to the boy. Chip took the PokeDex, looking it over in awe, then offered it back to the professor. Kukui shook his head, and Chip gasped. "Wait, you want to give it to me?"

"You said you wanted to visit all the islands to find your brother, right? That means the island challenge is perfect for you, and I intended on giving the next island challenger this PokeDex so that they can fill it up for my research."

Chip stared at the PokeDex with wide eyes. "It's so cool! It's so different from the Kanto one... it's shaped like a piece of bread!"

Kukui laughed abruptly. "Yeah, I suppose it is, cousin. But, you know, there's something really special about this PokeDex. It was designed to house a pokemon inside it, one that'll help you on your journey."

"What?" Chip looked at the PokeDex in bewilderment. It didn't look big enough to fit a pokemon! Besides, how would that even work? Chip looked back to the professor only to find him digging in the box again. Kukui pulled out an instruction manual and a block of styrofoam, then separated the halves to reveal a PokeBall inside. "Professor… um, I don't understand how a pokemon is going to fit in here."

"I figured you'd say that. Chip, how much do you know about rotom?"

"Huh?"

"Ah… rotom aren't native to Kanto, are they? I suppose you wouldn't know much about them… I just know Oak has one, so maybe you had seen his." But judging from Chip's expression, he must not have seen it. "Rotom is a plasma pokemon, electric and ghost. Its body is made of plasma, so it can possess electronics by embedding its body into them. The rotom in this PokeBall was bred by Oak, I think, from his own. He's been helping develop the project. Anyway, this is the first complete set Clemont's sent over, and I'm excited to see how it works out!"

"I didn't know the professor had a rotom… what do they look like?" Maybe he had seen it. Chip wasn't sure, Oak seemed to have a lot of pokemon, and not all of them were familiar to the blond.

Kukui grinned and held the PokeBall out to Chip. "Why don't you find out? Since I'm giving you this PokeDex, the ownership of this rotom will transfer to you as well. Just open the PokeBall, and it should go into the PokeDex. It was trained to do that."

Chip's heart pounded in excitement as he reached out to take the PokeBall, cupping it in his hands like a delicate, breakable artifact. Back home, there was no way he'd have been chosen to take a PokeDex. There was simply no way he could afford to travel through Kanto. Chip felt like he'd stumbled upon a huge stroke of luck: not only was Kukui letting him sleep in the basement, but he even entrusted him with this Alola PokeDex!

"All right! I'm going to try it!" Chip pressed the button in the center of the ball.

The ball popped open with a click, and a swirl of red energy exploded from inside. The energy reformed into an orange, circular pokemon. It was small, about eight inches from the top of its head spike, with a blue aura of electricity that formed into white and blue electric wings in the shape of lightning bolts. Blue eyes blinked open as the pokemon jerked, looking around with a startled expression, its electric wings furiously flitting up and down. "Zzzr?!"

"Oh man, look at that… it's so cute!" Chip reached out to touch it.

"I wouldn't—" Too late. Kukui watched with a raised eyebrow as the rotom shocked the boy when his hand brushed the electric aura surrounding it. Chip yelped, dropping the PokeDex as his arm fell to his side, numb and unmoving. The ghost darted off. It looked just as startled as Chip, its mouth turned downward in a frown as it zapped around the room.

"Rotom! Calm down—" Kukui called out. "Chip, are you okay?"

"My arm isn't moving!"

CRASH! A pile of boxes hit the ground as Rotom slammed into them. Papers scattered across the ground as Rotom ricocheted off everything it touched, little chirping noises of distress following its jagged movements. The professor put a hand to his forehead and sighed, then leaned down to pick up the PokeDex. He checked it for cracks, making sure it hadn't broken, then held it out. "I'm sorry we scared you, Rotom. Here, look—it's your favorite PokeDex!"

"Ro-to?" Rotom slowed its jolting around, looking at Kukui skeptically. Then, the frown on its face started to flicker until it became a smile. "Zzzrt!"

"I still can't feel my arm!...wait, no, my fingers are finally moving…" Chip said, grimacing as he wiggled his fingers. "It's really cute but kinda dangerous, huh?"

"It's an electric pokemon, Chip. You can't touch a rotom without getting shocked. You'll be fine, though, this rotom isn't very strong. It was bred to power the PokeDex." He waved the deep red machine in the air. "Come on, Rotom!"

Rotom bolted straight for the PokeDex. The professor's arm jerked back from the recoil as the pokemon slammed into the machine, but as its blue eyes blinked open on the PokeDex, the professor let it go, allowing it to float by itself in the blue aura of energy that surrounded it.

"It's really in there?" Chip asked, looking at the PokeDex curiously. As he watched, one rectangle-shaped limb popped out from the PokeDex, then the other, followed by a pair of feet. The screen turned white with a blue magnifying glass in the background. A smile formed on the screen as Chip stared, amazed. "Rotom? Is that you?"

A loading screen appeared. "Détection des préférencezzz de langue…"

"Oh, the PokeDex must still be set in Kalos's native language. Don't worry though, Rotom will recognize the language we're using and set it to that, cousin." Kukui picked up the instruction manual. The pages rustled as he flipped through them. They'd been stapled together, so the professor folded over the other pages when he found the one he was looking for. "It's also supposed to locate its owner and scan it as the 'user.' This is a pretty neat PokeDex! Clemont really went all out on these features."

"Language preference detected. Language hazzz been set to 'English,'" Rotom said. It floated over to Chip, then snapped a photo of him from the front camera. Chip's startled face was now on the screen as the blond boy stared—an unflattering photo, honestly. "Registering user Chip azzz PokeDex owner…"

"I…" Chip couldn't hide his bewilderment. Rotom could talk! He'd always known that pokemon could express thoughts to each other by saying their name, but he'd never imagined that they could hold a conversation with a human like this. Sure, he'd heard that rumor about Team Rocket having a talking meowth, but that was just a rumor! This rotom was real—right in front of him and speaking!

"Hello, Chip!" Rotom said cheerfully, moving in a circle around the boy. Its voice sounded a bit computer generated, but it still had a certain degree of personality. "I'm the Rotom PokeDex, zzzrt! But you can call me Rotom, if you'd like!"

"Pleasant little thing when it's not freaked out, huh?" Kukui said with a laugh. "Rotom, try not to shock Chip again, okay?"

"Zzzr!" Rotom put its hands to its mouth in embarrassment. Or, Chip figured those were like the equivalent of hands for the electric pokemon. "My apologiezzz! I didn't know what was going on, and my aura is electric, yes…"

"It's okay," Chip said. He reached out tentatively to touch the PokeDex, but hesitated before his fingers could touch the screen, shrinking back. Rotom frowned for a moment before its smile came back, and it floated closer until Chip's hand was pressed against it. Chip tensed, but nothing happened. "You're not going to shock me, right?"

"Of courzzze not! My job is to guide you through the island challenge and to log your pokemon encounters throughout your journey." Rotom grinned. "Though, zzzt, I do have an alarm clock function with a shock if you really need it…"

"No, no! I think I'll be fine," Chip said, waving his hands. "But what's an island challenge?"

"Oh, I didn't explain that, did I?" Kukui asked. He'd been flipping through the pages of the instruction manual, but set it down on the table for the moment. "The island challenge involves visiting every island of Alola and challenging the trials created by the island captains."

"Island captains? Trials?" Excitement continued building inside the boy as he looked at the professor. Rockruff had come back over and was pawing excitedly at Chip's leg. He looked down at the puppy and patted its head.

Rotom floated over and took a picture of Rockruff, much to the puppy pokemon's delight as it posed. "Chip, would you like me to read the PokeDex'zzz entry for this pokemon?" As Chip nodded, a more formal picture of Rockruff appeared on the PokeDex's screen. "Rockruff: the puppy pokemon. It shows its affection by rubbing the stones along its neck against its trainer. If not carefully polished, this rubbing can cause abrasions or cuts."

"I can attest to that," Kukui said with a laugh.

"How interesting, zzt!" Rotom prodded at Rockruff's neck with one arm until the puppy growled and knocked its arm away with one paw. Rotom glanced at its arm then let out a yelp of surprise. There was a scrape across it where the rocks had rubbed off some of the deep red paint of the PokeDex body. "See? What did I tell you? Zzr! Abrasions!"

"Oh, settle down," the professor said. He picked up a purple-gray spray bottle from one of the nearby tables and spritzed the ghost's arm. A moment later, the scrape disappeared. "You just took a minor amount of damage from the sharpness of Rockruff's neck stones. Be careful with that PokeDex, will you? It's one of a kind."

"Easy on the goodzzz, got it," Rotom said, nodding—or as much as it could nod, which amounted to moving its entire body.

"The PokeDex is so cool. I love how it has those little fun facts on different types of pokemon," Chip said. Rotom beamed, its screen turning slightly pink. "So you said tomorrow the kahuna will give me a pokemon to start my journey, right?"

Kukui rubbed his chin. "Hmm, well, if you're feeling really impatient—"

"I am!" Chip squeaked.

"—I think I might be able to talk him into having the ceremony tonight. Why don't you go check out the little bedroom I fashioned for you downstairs? You can get to know Rotom a little better too—oh, and read this instruction manual." The professor handed the stack of papers over to Chip and he took it, flipping through it eagerly. "Call Oak, too! In the meantime, I'll go talk to the kahuna. I'm sure he'll understand you passed your eleventh birthday already, and you're very excited to get started."

"Thanks, Professor Kukui! I really appreciate everything you've done for me… honestly, it means a lot." Chip hugged the papers in his arms a little. How had someone like him gotten so lucky? And here he'd thought his life was one endless string of unfortunate mishaps. Maybe his luck was turning around finally.

As the professor slipped out the front door, Chip smiled and scuttled down the stairs toward the basement, Rotom floating behind him. Downstairs, he could see the extension of the aquarium, where a corsola floated delightedly over a patch of seaweed. A massive library covered the back of the room, and just like the upper one, this floor had boxes scattered about as well. But what Chip noticed was a little cot had been fashioned off to the side, next to the aquarium. A sheet had been pulled from the aquarium to the bookshelf, affording a little privacy.

"This is pretty neat… oh!" Chip backed up in surprise when he realized there was a dark-feathered bird pokemon laying on the cot. It dashed away with an undignified squawk as soon as he took a step inside the little sequestered area. "Man, he has a lot of pokemon here…"

"Perfect for picture-taking, zzzt!" Rotom said. It was on the other side of the aquarium, trying to take pictures of the corsola. Soon as it was satisfied, it floated back over to the boy, hovering in front of him as he lay down on the cot. "If you don't mind me azzzking, why don't you have a home here in Alola?"

Chip fluffed the pillow up and leaned back against it. "I just moved here today. Um, from Kanto."

"So you are just visiting? Zzzr? Your home is in Kanto?"

"Not anymore." He turned onto his side and gazed at the electric pokemon.

"I don't underzzzstand," Rotom said, a question mark appearing on its screen.

"I used to live in Viridian City with my brother," Chip said, propping himself up with one elbow. A soft bark echoed on the other side of the sheet, then Rockruff nosed its way into the little corner Chip now called home. He smiled and held his arms out, and the puppy pokemon excitedly jumped into them. "Awww, Rockruff, you're so cute!"

"Did your brother come with you to Alola? Zzz?"

"No, he didn't. He left about a week before I did."

"So you have come to join him here? Zzr? But then why don't you live with him?" Rotom asked.

"He didn't leave his address."

"Why not?"

"That's what I wonder too, Rotom."

A sad emoji appeared on Rotom's screen. It seemed to understand the circumstances Chip had found himself in now. But the emoji disappeared just as quickly as it'd appeared as the smile returned to Rotom's screen. "I'm sure you'll find him, zzrt! You'll make tons of friendzzz here on Alola too!"

Chip lay back against the cot, snuggling into the blanket and Rockruff's earthy-smelling fur. "I sure hope so."

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 **A/N: Are you a fan of Rotomdex? What was your favorite part of this chapter? Comment below and let me know!**


	2. Chapter 2: Flatmates

**FEARFUL OF THE NIGHT**

By: Cy Mendoza

* * *

 **CHAPTER 2**

 _FLATMATES_

Chip plopped into the lab chair and faced a large screen. "Hey, Rotom, do you think you could connect me to Professor Oak? I'm not really sure how to use Professor Kukui's computer… looks like it's unlocked, though." He wiggled the mouse and the screen flickered on.

"Placing call to the Kanto region, zzr!" Rotom said, resting one of its limbs on the computer's screen. The call application opened, and a dialing notification spun in the center of the screen. A moment later, the professor's face appeared on the screen. Rotom flailed in delight. "Profezzzor!"

"Chip! Hello! Oh, Rotom? Is that you?" Professor Oak leaned closer as Rotom floated next to Chip's face, waving excitedly. "It looks like you made it to Alola in one piece! That goes for both of you, I'm so glad to see you've gotten there safely, Chip."

"It was a long boat ride," Chip said, wrinkling his nose. "I got seasick a lot."

"Well, that happens sometimes. I'm not the biggest fan of ship rides myself, that's why I usually fly everywhere. Now, I see you have Rotom over there with you. Did you know Rotom was bred by me? Just six weeks ago, in fact. I never would have expected it would be with you! But I don't think I could have chosen a better keeper for it. I know you'll take good care of it, won't you?"

"Of course I will." Chip glanced at Rotom, who seemed to be soaking up the professor's presence. He wondered if it missed its breeder. It didn't seem sad, just excited to see Oak again, so maybe it hadn't established a very strong bond with him. Chip hoped Rotom didn't miss him too much—he knew what it felt like to miss someone, and he wouldn't wish that on anyone.

"And I'll take good care of him!" Rotom said, grinning widely.

A pokemon in the background screamed for attention on Oak's end of the call, and the professor turned to look at it, shushing it quietly. Chip couldn't see what it was from the angle of the camera. He hoped he wasn't distracting the professor too much from his work, though. "Well, I won't take up too much of your time. I just wanted to let you know I'd gotten here safely."

"It's quite alright, Chip! Feel free to call me anytime. Though I imagine you'll be out on your own journey soon, won't you? I wish I could have given you a pokemon before you left on the ship, but the timing wasn't right… I didn't have any eggs close to hatching. I'm sure you'll get a wonderful one from the kahuna over there in Alola, though."

"That's what I'm hoping will happen tonight." A smile spread across Chip's face. "When I get it, I'll call you and show you, okay?"

"Very well! You take care and try to stay out of trouble, Chip. And make sure Rotom stays out of trouble, too!"

The call disconnected as Chip leaned back in the chair. Rotom spun in a circle beside him, a delighted look on its face. "I'm glad I got to talk to the profezzzor again! We should call him more often. Did you know you can place callzzz from the computer in each pokemon center? Maybe we could call him every time we reach a new pokemon center!"

"I think I've heard that, but we don't want to bother him, Rotom. He's always busy with his research," Chip said, sliding out of the chair and pushing it closer to the desk. He headed back over to the corner where his bed was set up and plopped down on it again. Rotom followed, the smile remaining on its face. "I think I'm going to take a nap until Professor Kukui comes back, okay? I don't need an alarm clock though, so don't worry! No zapping!"

Rotom made a little x motion over its screen. "Cross my circuitzzz, no zapping!"

Much to Chip's surprise, he fell into sleep much quicker than he would have expected. It must have not been a very deep one though, because the moment he heard the door clicking closed in the level above, his eyelids fluttered and consciousness jogged from dreamland. He groggily opened his eyes and listened to the sound of footsteps above creaking on the wooden floors. Thoughts of returning to sleep crossed his mind when he realized it could be Kukui up there with news about his ceremony. That was enough to jolt him out of grogginess, and he sat up. Rockruff grunted and lifted its head, looking at him. It must have joined him sometime during his nap.

Rotom had leaned against the wall beside Chip's bed, its arms missing. Its eyes were presumably closed, with just white instead of blue, and the magnifying glass on its screen was rotating slowly. Chip watched the screen for a moment, mesmerized, when another couple of creaking footsteps upstairs caught his attention. He gave Rotom a little poke on the screen and the ghost's eyes opened.

"Zzr?"

"Someone's home," Chip said. "Let's go upstairs and find out who."

Chip pushed the sheet closed, then ambled toward the stairs. Rockruff followed after him, with Rotom not far behind. As Chip reached the last stair, he saw someone in a large white sunhat approaching the loft and beginning the ascent to the top of it. It was a girl, so it must have been the professor's assistant. Chip waited until she'd gotten safely onto the loft before he left the stairs, afraid that if he called out to her, she might get scared and fall.

She set a gym bag with a PokeBall emblem on the side down on the sofa bed, then sat down beside it and sighed. She unzipped it, and a strange looking pokemon popped out the moment she did. It looked like a cloud, but it was a deep purple and black color, like a galaxy. Its face was pure black, and its eyes and mouth were white.

The strange pokemon floated down from the sofa, then turned toward the stairs, looking at Chip. It then let out a delighted noise and bounced, waving at him. "Pew!"

"What—" She gasped, turning toward the stairs to see Chip standing there watching. "Wh-Who are you? What are you doing in the professor's home?" She tried to move so that she was standing in front of the strange pokemon, blocking Chip's view of it, but it put her precariously close to the edge of the loft, and the pokemon leaned to the side to look at Chip anyway with a smile on its face.

"Um…" Well, this was awkward. "I guess the professor didn't tell you I was going to be staying here…"

She stared at him in panic for a moment, then slowly her expression calmed, though she was still frowning. "Wait, you're that boy…the boy from Kanto. No… I mean, yes, Professor Kukui did mention something about you coming to stay here temporarily…"

This recognition seemed to calm her, though she still looked stressed, turning quickly and whispering something to the pokemon behind her. It let out a cry of unhappiness then disappeared into the gym bag she had sitting on the sofa bed. She zipped the bag, slid the strap over her shoulder, then climbed down from the loft. As Chip stood there, staring in bewilderment, she stopped in front of the loft's ladder and glanced down.

"I'm sorry for snapping at you like that, I just didn't remember Professor Kukui had invited anyone in," she said. She then looked up, her face darkened by shadows cast from the sun hat. "I'm being so rude, I know. I'm sorry. My name is Lillie. I'm… the professor's assistant. He was kind enough to offer me a place to stay three months ago."

Chip stepped away from the stairwell and approached her, Rockruff and Rotom following after him. He stopped and smiled. "It's okay. My name is Chip, by the way, and yeah, I'm from Kanto."

"And I'm the Rotom PokeDex!" chirped Rotom, floating out from behind Chip. It waved at Lillie, who looked at it peculiarly. Rockruff shook its head and dashed over to the couch, so it could climb up and look out the window, presumably awaiting the professor's return. "Do you mind if I snap a picture of the pokemon in your bag, zzr? I like collecting photographs for the PokeDex!"

"No!" Lillie gasped, taking a step back as she gripped the bag's strap. "There's nothing in my bag."

Rotom blinked, frowning. It didn't understand why someone wouldn't want their pokemon photographed, and even more so, it didn't understand why Lillie would lie to them when they very clearly saw the pokemon enter the bag. It floated closer to Lillie, waving its arms a little. "Why not? Zzzm? If it doesn't like the flash, I can turn the flash off. I promizzze!"

"Um, Rotom, I think you might be scaring her," Chip said, putting a hand on Rotom's screen and gently pushing it back. "If she doesn't want you to take pictures, then she doesn't…"

"But that'zzz an illogical argument," Rotom said, perplexed.

"Shhhh," Chip said. He looked at Lillie with an embarrassed smile. She was looking at both of them suspiciously, her knuckles white as they gripped the strap of the bag. Whatever was in there—well, whatever pokemon, at least—she seemed incredibly defensive of it. Chip wasn't sure why, but he figured she had her reasons, and those reasons were none of his business. "I'm sorry, Rotom's just excited. It got into the PokeDex today and seems to really love the camera."

"I think I… I'm afraid I have some errands to attend to." Lillie was stiff, and her speech was more formal than it had been a moment ago. "It was so very nice meeting you, Chip. I hope to see you around more when the professor's back here."

Her gaze was darting toward the door. Chip felt a sinking feeling of sadness that she wanted to get away from him so badly (or maybe she just wanted to get away from Rotom). But he just shrugged and nodded, giving her a little wave. "It was nice meeting you too. Um… if you need anything, let me know! Like, if you need help being an assistant or something! I saw some of the roof shingles were missing, so, um…"

The conversation was quickly turning awkward and Lillie looked more and more like an animal trapped in a corner. Chip backed up a little bit, giving her space, and on second thought, reached to pull Rotom closer to him so it would stop hovering closer to her like it was trying to look into the bag. Rotom wiggled in his grip, but he held onto it tightly.

"That would be wonderful! Thank you. Um, goodbye!" Lillie backed toward the door, and hurriedly disappeared outside.

The moment Lillie disappeared outside, Chip moved to the window, looking through the streaks of duct tape to see what she was doing. She stopped outside, breathing heavily, then shook her head and walked up the path toward the hill. He watched her until she disappeared, then looked down at Rotom with an awkward laugh. "That went well."

"I think she'zzz scared of you seeing that pokemon in her bag," Rotom said, wiggling in his arms until it could break free, then it floated in front of Chip's face.

Chip laughed, nudging Rotom out of the way so he could still see between the streaks of duct tape on the window. "I know. I got that loud and clear."

"I wonder why though? Zz-zzz?"

"Were you able to see what kind of pokemon it was? Since you're in the PokeDex and all."

Rotom frowned. "No, I wasn't able to get a good look at it."

So the mystery would continue. Chip paced a little bit, wondering why Lillie was so defensive. Rotom leaned to the left and right, watching his movements. There was clearly something special about that pokemon in Lillie's bag, but Chip couldn't fathom what it was. Most trainers that had rare pokemon were eager to show them off and brag to others that they had something special. Lillie, on the other hand, looked like she didn't want anyone to see what she had. But why?

About a half hour later, the door opened, revealing the professor. "I hope I didn't keep you too long!" Kukui said.

"Oh no, it's okay—ah, Lillie stopped by earlier. I don't think she likes me much, though…"

"What? Why would you say that?"

"She ran right out the door when she saw Chip, zzt!" Rotom said.

"Is that so?" Kukui glanced between Chip and Rotom.

"I saw the pokemon she kept in her bag, and she got really defensive."

Kukui rubbed his chin. "I'll tell her you're no threat to her or her pokemon, and she'll calm down. She's just not keen on strangers seeing it."

"But why?" Chip asked. "What's the point of hiding a pokemon?"

"If the wrong people notice she has it, they'll try taking it from her."

" _Steal_ it?" Chip and Rotom said at the same time.

"You know, if I'm honest, cousin, I don't know. She really believes she's in danger, and I took her in because she had nowhere else to go. She said her family rejected her and people were chasing her now. Whether her story's true or not, making sure she's happy and safe is all that matters to me."

Chip couldn't fathom someone stealing a pokemon. That just didn't happen. Sure, sometimes parents would tell children stories about Team Rocket stealing pokemon to make them behave at night, but those were just stories, and that was all the way back in Kanto. Alola seemed like such a perfect paradise, one where nothing like that ever happened. Lillie was just paranoid, right? Just like the professor said, no one knew whether her story was true or not.

"Has anyone stolen a pokemon before?" Chip asked.

"No, and I'd like it to stay that way," the professor said. "But enough of this depressing talk, you don't want to miss the ceremony for your first pokemon partner, right? The kahuna said he understood where you were coming from, and he's going to set it up tonight!"

"Really?" Chip exclaimed. "I'm so excited! Do we go now? Um, wait, let me change!"

When Chip returned, Kukui glanced toward him and flashed a thumbs up sign. "You look great, cousin. The kahuna's going to be impressed you're taking this so seriously."

"It's an important night," Chip said, running his fingers back through his blond hair. "I want to look my best!"

The professor led Chip through a pathway heading north, one absent of tall grass. Chip knew that tall grass mean wild pokemon, and he'd been told from a very young age never to wander into the tall grass lest he get hurt. It was something his brother had repeated over and over, and he even had the faintest memories of his parents saying the same thing. His mother's face, framed by red hair, and his father's bright amber eyes glowing in the dark skin of his face were images seared into his consciousness.

Rotom followed beside Chip as he walked, and when he glanced over at the ghost's screen, there was a map on it. There was a small, yellow marker moving north up a pathway on the map, catching Chip's attention. He reached to pull the ghost out of the air as he walked, not wanting to stop and risk falling behind the professor.

"Thizzz is the map of Melemele Island," Rotom said. It was weird hearing it speak when there wasn't a mouth on the screen.

"What's that?" Chip asked, pointing to the yellow marker.

"It'zzz a chip."

Chip stared at Rotom.

"A potato chip! You know, a thinly sliced potato that'zzz been—"

"I know what a potato chip is," Chip said, putting his hands to his face for a moment before drawing them downward. He let out a heavy sigh, then laughed. "You have a unique sense of humor, don't you?"

"Sure do, bucko!" Rotom said, rotating in the air.

"Hurry along!" Kukui called from ahead. Chip jolted a little, then dashed after him, Rotom following quickly behind.

Up ahead, he could see the thatched roofs of buildings. A sign that he passed read 'Iki Town,' and the first thing he noticed was a massive stage in the very center of it. A couple of people milled around the stage, excited for the celebration. Chip tried to guess who might have been the kahuna. He wasn't sure what a kahuna looked like, but he figured it must have been an elder of some sort, or maybe just a very experienced trainer.

Kukui frowned as he approached the stage, looking around. "Ah, darn… where did he go?"

"Huh?" Chip asked.

"The kahuna said he'd be here. Oh, no matter, I'm sure he's around here somewhere. I'll wait here to make sure we don't miss each other, and if you don't mind, can you go up that trail and check the ruins? Sometimes the kahuna will commune with the island guardian before starting a new trainer's ceremony. He probably just didn't expect us to come back so fast. Don't worry, Rotom will show you the way." The professor sat on the edge of the stage.

The professor's confidence pushed away most of Chip's reservations as he headed toward the trail. He stopped in front of it and looked upward; the trail seemed to be on an incline, up toward what looked like a mountain. Rotom floated in front of him with the map still visible on its screen, and from what Chip could see, the trail was a sure shot north until it reached a bridge crossing a chasm.

When he reached the top of the trail, he did a double take upon seeing who was on the other side of the bridge: Lillie!

"Hey! Lillie!" Chip called out, waving.

Lillie looked up in surprise, then smiled awkwardly, offering a small wave in return. "Hello, Chip. I was just on my way to your ceremony..."

Chip crossed the bridge and moved past her, glancing into the rocky cavern it led to. "Did you see the kahuna at all?"

"No, I'm sorry," Lillie said, reaching the other side of the bridge, where she waited with her gaze fixed on her feet. "Um, do you mind if I walk with you back to Iki Town?"

"Oh, yeah, sure! Man, I wonder where the kahuna is..." The boy shrugged and headed back.

The bridge was rickety, but Chip hadn't noticed until one step resulted in a sharp crack. He froze, looking down at the rotted wood beneath his feet. Another couple of cracks filled the air.

"C-Careful," Lillie said. "Hurry, grab my hand—"

The board snapped beneath him.

"Chip!" Rotom yelled, panicking as it darted all around him. "Jump! Now! ZZT!"

Adrenaline pulsed through Chip's body. He could feel the bridge breaking beneath him and the sudden uncomfortable feeling of a free fall as he tumbled forward, one hand scrabbling for the nearest wooden plank. The half of the bridge slammed against the rock face with Chip barely holding onto it. The impact jostled him, but he barely felt anything beyond blind panic.

"Chip! No!" Lillie dashed to the edge of the cliff, looking down at him in panic. The ropes holding the bridge to the poles on either side of her had frayed, but they seemed to be holding him—for now. Chip's hand shook as it took his entire weight.

"Rotom! Help him!" Lillie cried.

Rotom trembled, looking at her in shock, before it flew down the gorge. Chip reached with his other hand to grab the wooden plank. Splinters dug into his fingers, but he still couldn't feel much. His whole body trembled as he dangled there.

The rope started to fray some more, jerking the bridge down slightly.

"Climb!" Rotom squeaked.

Chip felt like he was in a daze. His fingers felt stiff, almost like they were breakable, and his body only seemed to get heavier and heavier. The space above him where he could see Lillie's face was so narrow, like he was staring through a tiny hole. But Rotom's shout snapped him out of the daze, and he shakily reached up for the next wooden plank. It creaked in his grip, but held his weight, so he slowly reached for the next.

"You have to go faster, Chip!" Lillie cried. "The rope's not going to hold!"

Chip looked down at the rushing current beneath him, and the jagged stones with their tips pointed up toward the sky—up toward him. The realization that he was staring death in the face hit him just then, and he forced himself upwards, grabbing onto the next wooden plank. He climbed up, up, until one of the planks snapped in his grip. He let out a yelp, almost falling from the bridge as Lillie's screams filled his ears.

Rotom grabbed hold of his shirt and tugged upward. Chip used the upward mobility to grab the wooden plank again, and as he looked up, he saw the rope fraying nearly to its limit. Lillie reached her hand out, straining. Chip just needed to climb one more rung. He felt Rotom's tug, the ghost taking a slight bit of his weight with its pulling, and forced himself up one more plank until he could reach Lillie's hand.

The blood on his hands made his grip slick, but he managed to keep his hold on Lillie's hand, and the girl pulled with all her might until Chip could reach the edge of the cliff with his other hand. Rotom tugged as well, and finally—after what felt like a lifetime of terror-filled moments—Chip rolled onto the safety of the rocky ground, his heart threatening to pound out of his chest.

"Are you okay?" Lillie asked, her shoulders trembling.

"Chip! Zzzt!" Rotom circled around the boy in worry, three exclamation points on its screen.

Chip felt the pain come like a punch to the gut. He grunted a little bit and pushed himself up, his entire body shaking as he struggled to stay standing on wobbly knees. Rotom darted up to his side to help support him. "I… I think I'm okay. I think I'm okay. Just shaken up."

As the adrenaline started to die off, Chip took a couple steps forward, finding his legs weren't shaking quite as much. Lillie looked at Chip with worry in her eyes, carefully putting an arm around his waist. "Here, l-let me help you..."

"Let'zzz get you back to Iki Town," Rotom said, its voice trembling as the map filled its screen. "The profezzzor will know what to do."

* * *

 **A/N: Did you enjoy Lillie's introduction? Looking forward to seeing more Lillie? Or are there other characters you want to see? Comment below and let me know!**


	3. Chapter 3: Ceremony

**FEARFUL OF THE NIGHT**

By: Cy Mendoza

* * *

 **CHAPTER 3**

CEREMONY

Chip's head ached as they reached the end of the trail. Up ahead, he could see the professor leaning against the ceremonial stage, laughing as he spoke to a large, dark-skinned man wearing a yellow coat not unlike the professor's. As they drew nearer, the professor spotted them and his jovial expression turned into one of shock. He and the man beside him ran over, their boots pounding against the ground.

"What happened?" the professor asked.

"We were over by the ruins," Lillie said, her voice quivering. "But the bridge broke, and…"

"The bridge to the ruins!" said the man beside the professor. He tightened his fists, then exhaled and slowly released them. There was a twinge of guilt in his eyes. "I kept meaning to put up caution tape to keep trainers off the bridge. It's so old and we've needed to replace it for years... I should have done that sooner… child, I'm so, so sorry."

"I'm okay," Chip said. His mouth felt dry. "Just a little scratched up."

"Here, let's get you back to my lab. I'll get you all bandaged up and you can rest, all right? We'll have your ceremony tomorrow," Kukui said.

"No!" Chip tensed, halting. "I want… I want to still meet my partner today. Please… you're the kahuna, aren't you?" Chip said, his voice shaking slightly.

The kahuna let out a quiet sigh. "Yes, I'm Kahuna Hala. Let's have you come into my house for a moment, and we'll clean you up. Then, we'll continue with your ceremony. No sense meeting your partner when you're covered in blood, right?"

"Yes, sir!" Chip said, his eyes shining with excitement and tears.

It took a little effort, but Chip made his way inside the kahuna's home and planted himself on a chair. He panted, looking around with tired eyes as Hala spoke in hushed whispers to the professor. Part of Chip wondered what they were talking about, but he was feeling so tired he couldn't bring himself to care. By his side, Lillie and Rotom waited, both of them looking at him with worry.

Chip slid off his bloodied shirt. Kukui and Hala worked in tandem to disinfect and bandage the wounds—mostly on his hands and arms, but there were a few on his chest too. "It's not as bad as it looked from the outside," Kukui said, flashing Chip an uncertain smile.

"Here," Hala said, holding a folded up t-shirt out to Chip. It was a golden color with stripes of white on the bottom of the shirt and the edge of the sleeves. "This is my grandson's, and he's about your size."

The shirt fit perfectly. The fabric was soft, comfortable, even if a bit worn. Chip stood up carefully, feeling the bandages straining. They circled his chest, but they couldn't be seen from the outside now that he was wearing the new shirt. Chip looked down at himself then painfully formed his hand into a thumbs up. "Thank you."

"Ouch, look at those hands," Hala said. Chip looked at his bandaged hands in dismay. "Hm. Actually, I think I may have a pair of gloves, if you'd rather those be hidden. Hold on a moment." He pulled out a pair of thin black gloves that had a slight sheen to them. Chip slowly slipped them on, feeling pain rush through his hands with every moment. "They're made of rubber, but it shouldn't be too noticeable."

"I think you look good, cousin," Kukui said.

"Thanks," Chip said. He looked at Rotom gratefully as it offered him a glass of water, and he took it, ignoring the pain in his hands as he gripped the cup and downed a couple greedy gulps from it. Now that his throat didn't feel so dry, and the pain was subsiding thanks to the ointment placed on his wounds, Chip didn't feel quite as bad as he had before. And he was certainly still looking forward to receiving his first pokemon.

"Are you sure you still want to go through with the ceremony?" Hala asked. "A little rest would do you well."

"I'm sure," Chip said, handing the empty cup back to Rotom. It quickly deposited the cup into the sink. "I need this, sir."

The kahuna gazed back at him in understanding. "Very well."

The crowd gathered slowly around the stage as the kahuna made his way onto it. Some of them spoke in hushed whispers, looking at Chip. Despite the ache in his body, a smile had made its way across his face as the kahuna stood upon the stage. The kahuna waited until everyone had fallen silent before he began to speak.

"In the presence of Tapu Koko... Chip, I give you this island challenge pendant. It shows all around you that you intend to complete the challenge and claim the Z-Crystals in the wake of your victories."

 _Z-Crystals?_ Chip didn't know what those were. They sounded powerful, though, and the island challenge sounded difficult—of course, otherwise it wouldn't be called a challenge. The kahuna crossed the stage and held out a triangle-shaped pendant to him. Chip took it cautiously, worried that if he dropped it he would be committing some sort of sacrilegious offense. Just in case, he kept the pendant tightly clutched in his hands, no matter the pain from his fingers.

"Chip," the kahuna said, snapping Chip's attention back to the ceremony. "I offer you three pokemon. With Tapu Koko's blessing, may one of them choose you as its partner. A pokemon and its trainer must choose each other if they wish to forge the strongest of bonds, as there is no partnership without mutual respect and consent."

The kahuna tossed three PokeBalls onto the stage. They popped open, and data surged from within, forming three small Pokemon that looked around curiously, blinking in the dark. There was a little green owl that fluffed its feathers as it looked at him. A black and red cat watched him, caution in its gaze. Finally, a blue seal squeaked in delight, bouncing on its tail to wave its flippers at him. Chip's gaze was drawn immediately to the friendliness of the seal, and he reached forward to place his hands on its flippers.

"Seems like Popplio has taken a liking to you, hm?" Kukui said with a laugh. Beside him, Rockruff bounced and let out a soft bark, and Rotom nodded in approval. Chip glanced back at them and smiled, then he looked at Popplio again, drawn in by the depths of its dark eyes. He felt warmth flooding through him, like dipping into a steaming bath.

 _A pokemon and its trainer must choose each other,_ Chip told himself, smiling at Popplio. It let out a little whirring noise, then dropped back down onto its flippers and stared up at him expectedly. The two locked gazes again for a moment before Popplio squeaked and clapped, then hopped up into the boy's arms. Chip caught it with a gasp, barely noticing the pain in his hands, and the audience roared in applause, much to the boy's surprise.

"I'd say Popplio has made its choice," Hala said, one hand on his hip as he watched the pokemon's reaction. This was just as he'd hoped. The bond between a trainer and their first pokemon was unlike any other, and it seemed that if Chip wanted Popplio, their bond would be unbreakable. "How about you, Chip?"

Friendship and affection oozed from Popplio, and he couldn't fathom putting the seal down and rejecting it for another. Especially since the other two were looking at him with relative disinterest. Why would he want a pokemon offering any less love and acceptance than Popplio? "I love it! Of course I'll take it. Popplio, you said?"

He held the seal out in his arms, looking at it. Popplio chirred and rubbed its ball nose against his chest. "We'll be best friends, Popplio. Forever. I promise."

"Popplio has chosen Chip, and Chip has chosen Popplio!" Hala announced to another thunderous round of applause. He pulled the PokeBalls out for the other two Pokemon, then called them back. He strode over toward Chip and held out the remaining ball, which the blond took after shifting Popplio's weight a bit into one arm. "This popplio is yours now, Chip. May you have many years of friendship ahead of you, and blessings from Tapu Koko."

Chip felt like the world was blurring around him. The only thing he could focus on was Popplio—the sound of its soft breathing, the scent of the ocean on its slick skin. Everything else was hushed around him, the roar of applause like a whisper beyond his senses, too far to hear. It felt like the world was spinning but he was somehow standing through it, clutching his partner and imagining the future they'd explore together.

Rotom glanced at the professor, and now that it seemingly was permitted to approach its user, it darted up toward Chip. It circled around him with delight, taking pictures of Popplio, Chip, and the two together. Popplio blinked at the excited ghost curiously, then curled in Chip's arms a little, wary. "This izzz so great, Chip! I think you are going to do fantastically on the island challenge, zzt!"

"Honestly?" Chip said, unable to hide a smile. The pain had disappeared for the moment as his brain was riding the high of the ceremony, as well as bonding with his new partner.

"Cross my circuitzzz," Rotom said, trying to make a thumbs up with its arm. Chip looked at the attempt and laughed, then offered his own thumbs up, much to Rotom's delight. He gave Rotom a gentle pat on the arm and followed the professor, who was watching him from the edge of the pathway south. Lillie stood behind him, gripping her bag. But unlike the way she usually looked, Lillie actually seemed content, happy even. A smile was on her face as she regarded Chip and Popplio.

"I'm so happy for you, Chip," Lillie said. The delight in her green eyes was genuine. "You've chosen such a wonderful partner—ah, you've both chosen such a wonderful partner!" She smiled at Popplio, which barked back at her and clapped its fins.

"Come on, now," the professor said, waving both of them toward the pathway. "I really want Chip to take a rest now that he's gotten his partner. You can use my bed for the time being—I don't mind sleeping on the cot in the basement for a night. Lord knows I should be closer to my work anyway."

Chip looked at him in alarm. "I couldn't do that. It's _your_ bed."

"And you need a stable, comfortable place to rest. If it bothers you, just know you're not inconveniencing me one bit. Now, come on."

Chip didn't know what he'd done to deserve all this kindness, but it rattled him to the core. The people he'd found himself with were such selfless individuals, caring for anyone who came across their path. He truly was blessed by Tapu Koko. He had a kind and caring mentor in Kukui, a sweet friend in Lillie, a reliable companion in Rotom, and a beloved partner in Popplio. What more could he ask for?

"I'm glad to see you're not mad at me anymore," Chip said, walking alongside Lillie.

She looked at him with alarm. "I was never angry at you. I just… I have to be careful with who sees Nebby. I… I mean Cosmog."

"Cosmog? Is that the name of it?" Chip asked.

"Let me check! Let me check!" Rotom called out in excitement, buzzing in front of the two. It looked at Lillie, who puffed out her cheeks and slowly undid the zipper to the bag. White eyes peeked out, as well as a little mouth formed into an 'o' of surprise. Rotom delightedly scanned the pokemon, then a picture of it showed up on its screen. "Cosmog: the nebula pokemon. Its body is made up of gasses, making it frail. Its origin izzz unknown, though many speculate it might have come from outer space, or some other dimension. … Zrrr… Some other dimension… what'zzz that mean?"

"I think it means you've been watching too many sci-fi movies," Chip said, poking the center of Rotom's screen where the picture of Cosmog appeared. The ghost giggled and twirled in a circle. "Cosmog's a cool pokemon. If it's frail I can understand why you'd want to protect it. I'd do anything to keep Popplio safe."

Lillie smiled at his words. "I'm usually not that fond of pokemon trainers, but I can tell you love your popplio already."

"Why don't you like trainers?" Chip asked.

"They make their pokemon fight. I don't like seeing pokemon get hurt," she said, her gaze hardening as she looked down at her feet.

"Most pokemon like to fight, zzt," Rotom said. Popplio nodded in agreement. "Pokemon usually want to get stronger. Fighting and practicing their skillzzz is how they do that."

"Do you like to fight?" Chip asked.

Rotom frowned, as if perplexed by the question. "No… I wazzzn't born to fight."

Chip wasn't sure if that meant Rotom was more focused on its task of doling out PokeDex information, or it wasn't fond of fighting in general. Rotom had never showed any interest in battle, so he figured pokemon just had different priorities. "I imagine the professor would be very disappointed if you fought in that PokeDex, anyway…"

Rotom waved one arm. "That izzz a good point."

"I would be! Because you'll break the PokeDex, and it's one of a kind. Oak bred a very docile rotom for a reason," Kukui called from a couple yards ahead of them. He had his hands on his hips, a slight smile on his face as he waited for the others to catch up.

When they arrived at the lab, the professor showed Chip a door beneath the loft. "My room is right under the loft, through this doorway. Make yourself at home, okay? I feel an all-nighter coming anyway—there's some research I wanted to finish up before I went to sleep today, but that plan's been kinda blown out of the water by your arrival. Not to mean I'm not happy you're here, of course."

"Thanks professor," Chip said, hesitating at the entrance to the room. "Guess I'll see you both tomorrow?"

"Sleep well," Lillie said with a little wave. She offered him a small smile, then moved around the outside of the room until she reached the loft ladder. A moment later, she disappeared up it.

"Get some rest, cousin," Kukui said. "When you wake up tomorrow, I'll give you an adventure pack, okay? Then you can start training your popplio to take on the first island challenge trial."

"Sounds great! Thank you!" Chip grinned, wondering what an adventure pack was. He slipped into the room, closing the door quietly behind him.

Much to his surprise, the professor's room wasn't a nest of chaos. It looked like Lillie regularly cleaned in there, as the sheets were carefully folded, and the bed had been made recently. All the professor's clothes were neatly lined up in the closet, and the hamper was empty. Maybe she had done laundry recently. The wallpaper was a pale yellow color, and the professor had different rocks sitting on shelves, as well as a myriad of books scattered around in neatly stacked piles. As he looked closer, they even appeared to be alphabetized.

Popplio hopped onto the bed and clapped its fins with a giggle. It then nosed its way under the rock-themed comforter, then peeked out at Chip, blinking. Chip laughed, unrolling a brown blanket from the foot of the bed and tossing it over the seal. Rotom floated over, picking up one end of the blanket to look under it, then yelped in surprise when a spurt of water hit it in the face. "Don't! Don't! Zzt! I'm not waterproof!"

"Calm down, you're fine," Chip said, plopping onto the bed. He reached to pull Rotom over toward him, setting the ghost in his lap. He gently wiped the water off with one end of the blanket until the whole PokeDex surface was dry again. "See?"

"Zrrr," Rotom murmured. "I'm still not waterproof."

Popplio snickered, peeking its head out from under the blanket again. Rotom saw the way the seal was looking at it and squeaked, floating out of Chip's lap until it was a reasonable distance away from Popplio. This was much to the seal's pleasure, as it was thrilled an electric pokemon was wary of it instead of the other way around.

Chip glanced up as he heard the sound of Lillie's footsteps on the ceiling, then climbed into the bed beside Popplio. Now that he was laying down, crushing exhaustion from the evening hit him all at once. It was difficult keeping his eyes open, but he snuggled into the blankets until he found the perfect position to rest in. Rotom landed on the nightstand, looking at Chip and Popplio for a long couple of moments before its arms disappeared and it leaned against the nightstand lamp. Its eyes closed quickly after.

"Goodnight, Chip," Rotom murmured.

"G'night, Rotom," Chip said, then snuggled closer to Popplio. "And night, Popplio."

The seal let out a quiet coo, curling in the boy's arms. As Chip leaned over to turn the light off, the entire room was drenched in darkness. Rotom opened its eyes slightly and looked at the boy and his partner curled together and watched them slowly drift off to sleep—practically at the same time, as if their minds were melded already through their bond. The ghost felt a twinge of loneliness, but quickly pushed it away. Rotom wasn't meant for that life, and it knew it. There was no point in feeling jealous over something it was never meant to have.

* * *

 **A/N: What are you looking forward to seeing most from Sun and Moon's plotline? Comment below and let me know!**


	4. Chapter 4: Torn Asunder

**FEARFUL OF THE NIGHT**

By: Cy Mendoza

* * *

 **CHAPTER 4**

TORN ASUNDER

The sun hung just over the horizon. Pink streaked across the sky, and when Chip looked up at it, it reminded him of the night he'd arrived to Alola. He'd spent the whole afternoon training with Popplio, and he was already seeing gains. It was winning every challenge it made against the wild pokemon around, and Chip couldn't help but beam in pride. Popplio was a solid fighter.

Chip patted his partner on the head, then frowned as he glanced around. "Where did Rotom go?"

"AH!" Rotom burst out of the grass with a wide-eyed expression, flailing its arms.

Chip jumped back in shock, nearly falling. Popplio looked at him in alarm. "Rotom! Rotom, what is it?"

"Someone'zzz coming, and they don't look very friendly!" Rotom squeaked, dashing behind Chip with a streak of blue energy and peeking out from behind his shoulder.

Chip stared, wide-eyed, at the shaking grass in front of him. Popplio narrowed its eyes and growled. Footsteps grew louder and louder, then a moment later, two people dressed as gangsters burst out from the tall grass. They wore black tank tops with white crossed belts, and bandannas covered their mouths. Both guys looked five or six years older than Chip, and he backed up in surprise, unsure what was going on. Rotom ducked into Chip's backpack with a whimper.

"Yo! Look what we've found here!" one guy said, gesturing at Chip.

"Um…" Did they hear he was over here and wanted to fight him? Chip had read about how aggressive trainers could be about forcing a battle, but he didn't think that happened in Alola. Everyone here seemed so peaceful. "Hello...?"

"Yo, the way you're looking at us, you must know who we are!"

"Uh… no, I don't," Chip said, rubbing the back of his head. Maybe these guys were just eccentric? They certainly dressed strangely. There were some weird people who lived back in Kanto, for sure…

"What?" one guy exclaimed, his eyes widening. "You're serious?"

The other guy looked just as surprised. "You don't know who Team Skull is?"

Team Skull? Was that like Team Rocket? Chip was starting to feel a sinking sensation in his stomach. "No... did you want to battle?"

"Bah, whatever! It doesn't matter! Don't worry kid, we'll battle you, and then you'll go crying back home after!"

"Because that popplio's going to be ours!"

Chip stared at them in utter bewilderment. "Popplio's my partner!"

"And it won't be your partner after it's fainted in the PokeBall and we take it, and trust me kid, that's what's going to happen! Team Skull takes what it wants, when it wants!" The Team Skull grunts exchanged looks with each other, then grabbed the PokeBalls on their waistband and tossed them out with wide grins.

"Go, Zubat!"

"Go, Yungoos!"

As the two rival pokemon materialized in front of Team Skull, Chip yelped and scooted back. Popplio let out a huff and jumped forward, landing in front of Chip with an angry hiss. Chip had never fought in a trainer battle before, and his heart was pounding and mind racing with worry. It was sort of the same as a battle with a wild Pokemon, he knew, but this was different—this was terrifying—and how was Popplio supposed to win against two opponents?!

Chip froze in panic, then managed to shake off some of his terror, gritting his teeth. "Popplio! Use Water Gun on the zubat!"

The Team Skull grunt stomped his foot. "Zubat, use Confuse Ray!"

"Yungoos, Tackle!"

Popplio took a deep breath, then blasted water from its mouth at the bat. The water slammed the zubat back, but it fluttered its wings and opened its mouth wide, a stunning array of twirling lights shooting out from it, illuminating the dimly lit battlefield. The lights hit Popplio square in the face just moments before the yungoos smashed into it, sending Popplio flying back.

"No! Popplio!" Chip yanked open his backpack, pushing a quivering Rotom out of the way as he grabbed one of the potions. He rushed over to Popplio's side and sprayed the potion on the seal's scrapes and bruises. Popplio lifted its head, a dazed look in its eyes as it struggled to stand up. "Popplio, come on, Water Gun again! I think you can knock that zubat out!"

But Team Skull was already issuing their next set of orders. "Zubat, use Leech Life! And Yungoos, Tackle again!"

Just as Popplio managed to get up, the yungoos slammed into it, sending it skidding along the grass with a pained cry. Chip clenched his fists, terror in his eyes as he watched the zubat absorb some of Popplio's dwindling vitality with its Leech Life attack. Panicking, he grabbed the next potion, tossing the empty one off to the side, and sprayed Popplio with it. The wounds disappeared, but the little seal didn't look like it had a clue where it was, or what it was doing.

"Give up, kid! Your bag doesn't have endless potions in it!" one of the Team Skull members taunted, gesturing with both hands in a rapid, nonsensical way. "Do it again, Zubat! Leech Life!"

"And you, Yungoos, Tackle!" called the other.

It was then that Chip realized what a truly horrible position he was in. He sprayed Popplio with the last potion, panicked. "Popplio, you have to take them down! I don't have any more potions left! Use Water Gun and knock the zubat out for good, and then I know you can take that Yungoos! You've been training against them all day!"

Popplio struggled up, but another round of Leech Life and Tackle left it trembling on the ground. He could tell it was suffering, but the potion bottles were all empty, and now all he could rely on was hope. Hope. People really wouldn't steal pokemon, right? That was only Lillie being paranoid. And it didn't matter because Popplio would pull through, he knew it! Their budding friendship was strong, something had to happen, some sort of miracle, anything to stop this.

But as Popplio forced itself up and tried to aim its Water Gun attack at the zubat, it missed, and a final pummel from the Team Skull pokemon left it exhausted on the ground. Chip watched with a crushing terror as Popplio's body went lax, and the pokemon passed out. A moment later, its body broke down into data and shot back into the PokeBall.

"Popplio!" Chip gasped as he held onto the PokeBall. "No, Popplio!"

The Team Skull members sauntered over, flashing him their wicked grins. Chip took a step back, alarm blaring in his head. "You know what's next, kid! Hand over that popplio. We can either do this the easy way or the hard way, and the hard way's gonna end with you getting wrecked."

"Go away!" Chip shouted. He had to get away. He had to escape! The blond turned and ran, forcing his legs to move as fast as they possibly could. "You can't have my popplio!"

"Hey! Get back here, you stupid kid! Yungoos, go get him!"

Chip felt something slam into his back, and down he fell, hitting the dirt. When he turned around, scrambling to sit up, he found the mongoose-like pokemon snarling at him. The creature snapped at his hand, making him yelp and back up more. The Team Skull grunts approached, one of them with his arms crossed while the other cracked his knuckles.

"All right," the grunt said, grabbing the back of Chip's shirt and yanking him up. "The hard way it is."

THWACK! Pain exploded in Chip's face; he'd only seen a blur of Team Skull's fist. He hit the ground, feeling Popplio's PokeBall tumbling out of his hand. Vision swimming, he struggled to grab for it as it rolled away, then let out a cry as a hand entered his vision and grabbed the PokeBall.

"Thanks for the popplio, kid! This thing's gonna serve Team Skull well, so don't worry! We'll take better care of it than you would've! Oh… and just to make sure you don't follow us…"

Pain exploded in Chip's head. The world grew fuzzy… muted… then black.

Chip didn't know how long he'd laid there. When his consciousness slowly started coming back, he didn't realize where he was. Everything was still black around him, and he thought for a moment that he was snuggled in the blankets of Professor Kukui's bed, Popplio comfortably in his arms. Yeah. He must've still been in the professor's lab. Rockruff must've been near too. He could smell the earthy scent of the puppy's fur, like breathing in a whiff of dirt itself.

There was a voice, but it seemed so far away. Part of him recognized it as Rotom, but he just wanted to sleep. Just a couple more hours… he was so tired, and exhaustion felt like a rock in the pit of his stomach. He didn't need an alarm clock, why was Rotom still shouting?

"Chip!"

He definitely wasn't in the professor's bed. The ground beneath him was so hard, and tiny rocks dug into his skin. Rotom's voice swum around him. His mouth was so dry and tasted like dirt. He started to gag on the taste, and piece by piece his consciousness returned.

"Chip! Zzr… please! Wake up!"

The first thing Chip noticed was the exploding pain inside his head. He whimpered and curled onto his side, pressing his hands against his head. The second thing he noticed was the taste of blood in his mouth, heavy and metallic. Then, all at once, everything came back to him. The battle with Team Skull… Popplio had been stolen! His eyes shot open, and he pushed himself up, looking around himself desperately like he might find Popplio waiting beside him.

But Rotom was the only one nearby. They were surrounded by pitch black darkness, with only the light from Rotom's screen to see by. "Chip! Ah, you're awake… are you okay? Zzz?"

The pain in his head was nothing compared to the swell of agony that steadily grew in his heart. He clenched his fists, shoulders trembling, as tears started collecting in the corners of his eyes. Popplio had been stolen. He had no partner now, and he doubted the kahuna would give him another. Why would anyone trust him with a pokemon when someone would just steal it from him again?

"Chip?" Rotom whispered. "Let'zzz go back, okay? The professor will know what to do..."

"I can't," he said, sniffling, as he wiped his face with one arm.

"Why not?"

"I lost Popplio! What happens if a wild pokemon attacks me? I can't _do_ anything!"

Rotom hesitated, then floated in front of him. "Chip… please don't cry. I'm yours too, zzrr? I'll... I'll protect you."

A dumb stare crossed Chip's face as he stared at Rotom. Then, he felt like someone had slapped him. Rotom was right. It was his pokemon. Kukui had given it to him. "But you… you said you don't battle…?"

"I can't battle in thizzz PokeDex. But I...I can leave it if I have to." Digital tears flowed from both eyes down Rotom's screen. "I was too scared to do anything when you got attacked… but… if you give me a second chance, I promizzze I'll protect you!"

A moment later, the screen on the PokeDex turned dark, the appendages disappearing from either side, and the machine fell into the grass. Rotom popped out of the PokeDex, tears flowing from its eyes as it floated in the air front of the boy, its electric aura sparking and jittering back and forth. "Ro, rotom! Ro-to-"

"Rotom, Rotom, calm down," Chip said, wiping his eyes. "I can't understand you when you're just saying your name."

Rotom abruptly stopped, then darted into the PokeDex once again. A moment later, the screen fired up once more, and the red appendages popped out of either side. The ghost still looked stricken with digital tears still flowing from its eyes. "I'm sorry! It'zzz my fault Popplio got stolen! I shouldn't have hidden..."

Rotom couldn't forgive itself for cowering in Chip's bag when Team Skull had attacked. If it'd been brave, it could have joined Poppilo, and it knew its Thunder Shock move would have knocked that zubat out easily, right? Zubat was a flying type, making it weak to electric. With the two of them, none of this would have happened, and Chip wouldn't be hurt.

Rotom hated itself. It was a coward, how could it not hate itself?

Chip reached to take Rotom in his hands, gripping beneath the red appendages making up its arms. Rotom's arms flopped in front of it, and it hung there, looking crushed.

"Rotom… are you blaming yourself for not joining the battle?" Chip remembered the look on Rotom's face when he'd pushed it out of the way in the backpack. It must have been terrified to hide in there like that. He bit his bottom lip, feeling that same consuming terror prickle in the back of his mind as he thought about the fight and the moments before he lost Popplio.

Rotom didn't respond, feeling disgusted with itself. A pokemon that was afraid to battle… how more pathetic could it get?

"Ah… it's okay," Chip said, hugging the ghost. He felt Rotom tremble and held it even tighter. "It's normal to be a little scared before a fight. Especially if you're not that confident in yourself…"

"Zzr…" Rotom murmured, rubbing its face with one arm.

"A-And you said you weren't bred to battle, right?"

Rotom looked up at Chip. It'd been told over and over its destiny wasn't to battle, and Rotom had absorbed that message obediently. "The other rotom, my siblingzzz, were the ones who were going to train for battle in different appliances… The professor told me _I_ was special… I wazzz going to power a PokeDex. I'd be trained for something different. Something greater."

As Rotom spoke, it felt a deeper and deeper sense of sadness, and gradually trailed off. Rotom suspected that it'd been kept from the others of its kind to preserve its docile personality. There was a part of it that felt tempted to mischief sometimes, but that part had to be trained out of it, so it could be a proper addition to the PokeDex. But when Rotom really thought about it, it couldn't blame Oak for this fear of fighting. Oak had been kind to Rotom. It had been born with these anxieties; its task with the PokeDex had just exacerbated the problem, instead of Rotom being encouraged to fight from birth to strengthen its self-esteem.

"Ah, come on Rotom, don't be sad," Chip said. "You're an electric type, which means that you'll fight against the birds around here easily, right? And since you're a ghost type, the normal type ones like the yungoos can't hurt you. Right? See, you're not weak. You're strong, you just need to have faith in yourself. We'll get strong together, and then we'll rescue Popplio."

Rotom frowned. "You think so? Zz-zzt?"

"I know it. Come on, smile, Ro-Ro. I know you can." He poked the center of Rotom's screen. Rotom floated out of his hands and smiled back. "See? I knew you could. You'll grow strong and you'll amaze me and everyone around, I know it."

"If...If you say so," Rotom said, blushing lightly.

Chip smiled, but now that he'd calmed down from his panic, he still had a splitting headache, and it felt like there was a bruise forming on his face. When he touched his cheek, it felt tender there, and he could imagine there was a splotch of purple and dark red. There was a pain in his stomach that gnawed like a hungry animal. Or maybe it was his grief in there, clawing at his insides. Popplio…

He stood up shakily, scooping Rotom up in one arm and his backpack in the other. Rotom tapped him. "Chip, I can fly, so you don't need to carry me. I can carry your backpack too if you want, zz-zzz?"

Chip shrugged. "You don't have to. Besides, I like holding you."

Rotom blinked, then smiled and hugged the boy's arm. "Okay then, zzt."

"Can you map us the way home? I'm going to… tell Professor Kukui about what happened. Then, um, I'll talk to the kahuna too… maybe they can do something. Maybe they can get Popplio back for me."

Chip knew that they weren't too far from the lab. He'd originally told himself he wouldn't venture far on the first day, after all. If he were to estimate, he was maybe a twenty minute walk from the professor's home. He just had to be careful where he stepped to avoid running into wild pokemon. Rotom was definitely not ready to train yet, and with no potions, Chip didn't feel ethical asking Rotom to fight for him anyway.

Rotom's map appeared again and it marked a flag where the professor's lab was. "You got it! Right here'zzz where we want to go."

"Um, Rotom…" Chip wasn't really sure how to approach the topic. "If a wild pokemon attacks…"

"I'll be ready, zzzt," Rotom said, but it honestly couldn't shake the fear creeping up on it. Maybe its passive nature had been why Oak chose it to power the PokeDex instead of another rotom. Oak had mentioned something about studying a Rotom's ability to change forms, but that was for rotoms with natures better fitted for battle. Knowing what the PokeDex said about rotoms, though… maybe even ones with a bold nature would get scared and run away.

Chip suddenly felt a shiver pass through him, as if something was staring at him intensely. He looked around himself and found his gaze locked on two eyes out in the dark of the woods, where the trees were jammed closer together. His heart started pounding as he worried whatever was out there could hurt Rotom if it attacked, but then the eyes closed. He stood there, tense, but the eyes didn't reappear.

There was something shining out there in the woods where that pair of eyes had been.

"Did you see something?" Rotom asked, peering around. Its gaze fell upon the items glistening in the woods, and it popped out of Chip's arms, grateful for something to distract them. "Look! Someone dropped some stuff! Let'zzz go check it out!"

Chip was hesitant, but Rotom seemed so confident (or oblivious) that there was no danger, so he finally followed after it. The tears had disappeared from Rotom's face, and a smile was now occupying its screen as it dashed over to where the fallen items were. When he reached the edge of the tree line, he leaned over, bracing himself against one of the trees, and spotted… two items sitting in the grass, among the tree roots. One was a pale gray bracelet and the other a large yellow feather tipped in orange. The feather tingled with electricity.

"Zzr?" Rotom floated down beside the feather and picked it up. An electric shudder ran through the pokemon as it gripped the feather, then it looked up at Chip. "Thizzz is so weird. It feels like it'zzz boosting my electric powers."

"Really? And what's this?" Chip picked his way through the vegetation and made it over to where Rotom was floating. He leaned down and picked up the bracelet. It was odd—pale gray with a darker gray interior, with a black piece on one side and a white one on the other. Between the two, there was a slot, but it was empty. He brought it up to his ear, hearing a faint ticking sound inside, like a watch. Chip undid the clasp at the back and fit it around his wrist, then snapped it closed.

Rotom blinked, looking at the bracelet. "I don't know. Maybe you should show the professor? Perhapzzz he would know?"

"Huh," Chip said, tapping the empty slot on the bracelet. "Hold onto the feather for now, if it actually boosts your power then that's worth holding. Actually… hmm, let me see." He dug into one of his pants pockets, then pulled out an extra bit of black string. He'd used most of it to fasten the island challenge pendant to his backpack, but there was still some left. He tied one end of the string to the shaft of the feather, flinching at the shock of electricity it gave him, then tied it to Rotom's arm. "Does it still work? Even when you're not holding it?"

Rotom dropped the feather, and it drifted down before hanging loosely beneath its screen. "I can still feel it! Thizzz is a good idea, clever boy."

Chip gave Rotom an odd look, then shook his head with a laugh and reached to poke its screen. Rotom wiggled as the map popped up. "Um… okay. We're northeast of the professor's lab, right? Which means if we get to this road, and follow it southwest, then we'll get there in no time."

Rotom nodded energetically. "Let'zzz go!"

* * *

 **A/N: What do you think will happen when Rotom has to fight? Comment below and let me know what you predict!**


	5. Chapter 5: Rotom's First Battle

**FEARFUL OF THE NIGHT**

By: Cy Mendoza

* * *

 **CHAPTER 5**

 **ROTOM'S FIRST BATTLE**

Chip's eyes lit up slightly as he realized he could see a light in the darkness. Multiple lights, actually—porch lights. "We're close! I can see the lab from here!" He pushed some tall grass aside, heart racing. So far, they'd been lucky… no wild pokemon had attacked them. Ideally, Chip wanted it to stay that way. "Roro, look!"

"Why do you keep calling me that? Zzr?" Rotom asked, a confused look on its face.

"Because," Chip said, poking the center of its screen. Rotom giggled. "That's what you say when you try speaking in your normal form. So that's what I'm going to call you. It's cute."

"A name? For me?" Rotom looked utterly bewildered. "I've never had a name... the professor just called me Rotom."

"Yeah! Why not? You're my partner now, right?" Chip asked. A delighted look crossed the ghost's face. Chip smiled and poked its screen again, earning another few giggles. "Can you feel that? When I'm touching the PokeDex?"

"Sure can, zzzr." Rotom floated around him in a circle, still smiling. It looked completely pleased, so opposite to its fearful state just an hour or so before. Chip had picked through the grass carefully, checking before he moved, and gradually Rotom became less tense and frightened of an upcoming battle. Chip seemed to know how to move quietly, and so far he'd avoided any wild pokemon. There were still worries in the back of Rotom's mind, but it tried to quell them. Being with Chip made it happy, so why not focus on that?

"Huh." Chip poked it again, pulling Rotom out of its thoughts. "But it's metal. How do you feel metal?"

"When I possess something, my body getzzz embedded into it. So the machine izzz me," Rotom said. "Why do you keep poking me? I thought my map wazzz already up?"

"Because you giggle when I do it." He reached to poke at Rotom again. "Why are you always laughing?"

Rotom spun a little in delight. "Because I'm happy!"

That seemed like a good enough reason to Chip. "I'm happy too, Roro… happy that you're my partner."

Rotom's screen turned slightly pink. "Ah… the honor's all mine, Chip."

Chip reached to pull the ghost closer to him, giving it a brief hug, then looked at the screen. The map was up at the moment, but there was a clock in the top right corner as well. The clock informed him that it was early evening. It meant he must have been unconscious for an hour or two; there was no other way to explain how sunset had come and gone so quickly. At least he hadn't lost too much time—there was that much to be grateful for.

He took another step, then paused when he heard something rustling in the grass. Instinctively, Rotom darted back toward Chip's shoulder, holding on there as it stared at the moving patch of grass. A wiggling nose slipped out from the grass first, followed by a dark gray and brown body. It was a rattata, drawn by the sound of their voices with the hope they might have some snacks to steal. It reared onto its back legs, squinting at them, then dropped back down onto all four legs and snarled.

"Roro," Chip whispered, taking a slow, cautious step back. "It's a normal type, right? It can't touch you, you'll be fine."

"It's dark type!" Rotom squeaked. "Ghost types are weak against dark!"

The rattata lowered its head, then growled and charged at the two. Its huge incisors glinted in the moonlight as it let out a cry of anger and hunger. Chip jumped back with a yelp, a bolt of terror slicing through him as he imagined those huge teeth cutting through his skin.

His brother's stories flitted through his mind. _"You know what Team Rocket would do, when they really wanted someone to talk? They'd take a colony of rattata and starve them until they were desperate for food. Then they'd dangle the person over it. The threat of being eaten alive would convince even the most stubborn detractor."_

"ZZZR!" Rotom popped out of the PokeDex, leaving the machine to fall to the grass. With an angry squeak, it dashed in front of Chip, immediately launching a Thunder Shock attack. The electricity stopped the rattata in its tracks as it shook its head, eyes glinting with fury. The snarl that followed caused Rotom to freeze. It had attacked a dark-type pokemon and every cell of its body was screaming at it to run.

"There you go! Good job!" Chip called out, clapping his hands. The sound was enough to jolt Rotom out of its paralysis, and it jerked back, trying to put distance between itself and the rattata. Chip wanted to encourage Rotom, but at the same time, he worried it would be overwhelmed by terror and run again. He had to have faith in his pokemon—Rotom wouldn't run away, it wouldn't leave him vulnerable to an attack by an angry rattata.

Rotom looked back at him in worry. "Ro… RO-TO!"

The rat launched itself at Rotom. An aura of dark energy surrounded it; it was trying to chomp down on Rotom with its dark-type Bite move. Rotom was fast, though, and it darted out of the way, its electric aura sporadically twisting and flailing in fear. Chip understood; Rotom had no battle experience and a strike from that rattata with a dark-type move would certainly cause it to faint. He felt like his anxiety was ramping up just watching the poor ghost try to avoid the dark-type move.

Chip sucked in a breath. "Thunder Wave, Rotom! You're already fast, paralyze it, and then it shouldn't be able to attack you! You'll be able to dodge all its moves!"

Rotom was panicking, though, and didn't seem to hear him. It darted back and forth, trying desperately to avoid the rattata's dark-type move. The rattata landed back onto the ground after another failed attempt at biting Rotom, hissed, and swung its tail around in a Sand Attack move. Rotom winced, blinking heavily through the sand that clung to its plasma body. Bits of debris sparked and hissed with smoke in Rotom's electric aura.

"Roto… to-to-to-" it backed up toward Chip, trying to brush the sand from its eyes with its electric aura. The rattata sent another wave of debris at it with Sand Attack, coating Chip as well. He put an arm over his face to protect his face, feeling the sting of sand against exposed skin.

"Rotom! Listen to me, use Thunder Wave!" Chip called out, but Rotom was still distracted. It darted off to the side, then bolted forward with a streak of black and purple energy as it used its Astonish attack. The ghost-type move, however, passed straight through the rattata with no visible effect, and it shook its head lightly, unaffected by the attack.

Damn it! Chip thought, biting his bottom lip. Rotom was in full panic mode and using attacks that weren't even effective against the rattata! Chip needed to get its attention, or the rattata would eventually land one of its Bite attacks—doing tons of damage to Rotom that Chip wasn't sure it could recover emotionally from, even if he did find a pokemon center. It was already scared, and he didn't know how Rotom would react if it got hurt and fainted in a battle.

And Chip didn't know what would happen to him if Rotom fainted, either.

 _"Do you think a rattata would really eat a human? They wouldn't, right?"_

 _"When something gets desperate enough, I think it'll do anything it needs to to survive."_

"ROTOM!" Chip yelled. He took a deep breath. "RORO!" The sound of its nickname seemed to ground Rotom as it finally looked back at him, terror in its eyes. "Roro! Use Thunder Wave! If you paralyze it, you'll be able to win the battle!"

Rotom jittered back and forth, but managed to calm down enough to follow Chip's directions, a zap of electricity whirling out from it and striking the rat pokemon. The rattata stiffened, then gritted its teeth, struggling to make its limbs move.

"Good job, now use Thunder Shock! I think one more hit and it'll faint!"

A burst of electricity sent the rattata reeling. It struggled to try standing up again, barely making it to its feet, then scrambled back into the brush in retreat. Chip stared for a long couple of moments then let out a whoop of pride, running up to Rotom with a big smile on his face. It turned to look at him, dazed, but his happiness was infectious, and soon Rotom was darting around like a ricocheting bullet, a huge grin on its face.

Chip grabbed the PokeDex from the ground, and as if by instinct, Rotom made a u-turn and dashed into the machine. It booted up, and Rotom's appendages flailed around in excitement the moment they popped out. "I did it! Zzz!"

"See, I told you! It was dark type, and you still beat it." Chip held Rotom up, smiling at it. The tension slowly leaked out of his limbs as he saw the happy way Rotom looked at him. "You just had to believe in yourself. You're fast. You can dodge attacks, and that put you at an advantage."

Rotom blushed. "I feel stronger already, zz."

"It was your first battle and you did great. You did freeze up there, so just… um, try to focus more on what I'm saying, okay?" Chip said. Rotom nodded, though Chip worried if they had a battle where Rotom got hurt, it might ignore him again out of fear. All the same, Chip felt like he could help Rotom get stronger and more confident. Nothing would change its timid nature, but maybe he could draw out its strength and protectiveness as a partner. He'd seen the way Rotom immediately jumped to his aid when the rattata lunged for him. It'd been scared, but it'd put that aside to protect him.

"You're really proud? Zzz?" Rotom asked quietly, looking up at Chip.

"Really really," Chip said with a confirming smile. Rotom took the words in, then smiled back. Its smile was gentler this time, a mixture between thankful and relieved. "Oh… I was also going to ask, so you really can't battle in the PokeDex?"

Rotom shrugged. "The profezzzor told me to be careful with the PokeDex, and if I fight in a battle with it, it could get damaged. Besidezzz, it's slow. I don't think I would feel comfortable battling in it."

Well, that made sense. "I guess I appreciate that, because it'd kinda suck if my PokeDex didn't work… this map is pretty useful, honestly." He purposely poked Rotom's screen a few times to make it wiggle, then smiled. "Assuming we don't run into any more rattatas, we should be able to get to the lab without any problems."

Chip's words proved true as he dashed up toward the entrance way of the professor's lab. His heart pounded as he opened the door, feeling like he'd get drawn into a battle with a wild pokemon at any moment until he finally crossed that threshold. When he closed the door behind him, he let out a sigh of relief, closing his eyes and leaning back against the door. When he opened them, he noticed Lillie was laying on the loft bed, a book in her hands. She had lowered the book and was looking at him.

"Hi, Chip," Lillie said. "How was training?"

"Pew!" Cosmog squeaked, waving its arms at Chip.

Oh god. Chip realized if he told Lillie his pokemon had been stolen, she would be even more paranoid about Cosmog's safety. He didn't want to worry her more, but at the same time, he didn't want to lie to her. He rubbed a hand against his face, letting out a long sigh. "Do you mind if I come up for the moment?"

She put the book down. "Of course, if you'd like to."

Chip glanced at Rotom, glad his partner hadn't blurted anything out. He would have to break this delicately to Lillie, and even so, he wasn't sure how he was going to phrase it. Rotom just looked at Chip uncertainly, like it was wondering whether he wanted it to explain the situation, but he shook his head lightly. He climbed the loft ladder then plopped onto the bed beside Lillie with yet another sigh. Rotom followed after him, and landed gently on his head.

"Your Rotom Dex looks so cute when it does that," Lillie said, pointing to it and giggling. "So you have Popplio in a PokeBall right now? If you get some rest, it'll recover from any battle damage it might have taken, unless the damage is serious… then you'd need the experts at the pokemon center to help."

"Lillie…"

She frowned, sitting up and wrapping her arms around her knees. She looked at Chip with worry. "What's wrong? Did something happen? Oh, Chip, you have a black eye… Do you need me to show you where the pokemon center is? They can help people, too. There's a hospital for people and pokemon inside each one."

"Lillie…" Chip hesitated. "Popplio… was… stolen from me."

"What?!" Lillie jumped up, a horrified look on her face. "It was _stolen_?!"

"It was Team Skull," Chip said, feeling a sinking sensation in his stomach. He didn't want to go back over this, but part of him knew he would be telling this story multiple times. The professor would want to know, and so would the kahuna. Just the thought of having to repeat his loss of Popplio to so many people made him feel numb. "They attacked Popplio with two pokemon, and it lost… when it fainted, they took it from me…"

Lillie put her hands on her face, then slowly sat down on the loft again. "Chip… I'm so, so sorry. Those Team Skull thugs have been threatening to steal pokemon for so long… they're...they're one of the reasons why I'm so careful with Nebby, b-but… I never thought that would happen to you. Did they hurt you?" But the moment the words slipped out of her mouth, she shook her head and gently reached for Chip's face, though her fingers didn't brush the purplish skin around his eye. "Why am I asking that, I can see your black eye right here… are you okay?"

"About as okay as I can be," Chip said with a sigh. The pain was rooting deep inside him, threatening to overtake the numb feeling. He didn't want that. He didn't want to feel that crushing agony again; he would take the numbness over anything.

"Are you going to get another pokemon from the kahuna?" she asked.

"I… I have a new partner now," Chip said.

Lillie frowned. "Who?"

Chip pointed up.

" _Rotom_?" Lillie's mouth hung open slightly. "But it's… it's a PokeDex."

"It's not always in the PokeDex," Chip said. He then reached up and poked Rotom. "Can you show her what you look like when you're not in the PokeDex?"

"Zzr? Okay," Rotom said. It floated down so it was in Chip's lap, so he could hold onto the PokeDex when it left the machine. A moment later, the PokeDex went dark, and Chip sat it down beside him on the loft bed while Rotom buzzed around his head, coming to a halt beside his shoulder. Its wide eyes stared at Lillie. Would she think it wasn't good enough to be Chip's partner? Rotom wouldn't be surprised if that were the case. It was lucky it could convince Chip into thinking it could be a good partner, but surely no one else would be fooled.

"Oh… it's so cute," Lillie said, smiling softly as she looked at Rotom. She reached out to touch it, then eyed the electric aura around it hesitantly. "Chip… do you still have those gloves the kahuna gave you last night?"

"What? Um, I think they're in my backpack," Chip said, leaning down to dig into it. A moment later, he produced the black gloves.

"It's surrounded by electricity… right?" Lillie said. She took the gloves and slipped them on, then reached to cup Rotom gently in her hands. Rotom looked at the gloves in bewilderment, then at Lillie, like it couldn't fathom it was being touched. "It looks like you can hold Rotom if you're wearing these gloves… because they're made of rubber…"

"...That doesn't make any sense," Chip said. "I thought Rotom's body was made of plasma? I mean, it's a ghost."

"Ro-to-to," Rotom said, nodding.

"I think ghost pokemon can change the density of their bodies at will…it's how they turn invisible," Lillie said, stroking her fingers over Rotom's head. "That's what I read in a book in the professor's basement about gastly, haunter, and gengar… the book said they're capable of turning corporeal, so there's nothing saying Rotom can't do it too…"

Lillie moved her hands away from Rotom, and the ghost started floating again. She took the gloves off and offered them to Chip. Now that curiosity was getting the better of him, he put the gloves on as well, and reached to touch Rotom with his fingertips. It was so weird—he could faintly feel the boundaries of Rotom's body, where the air ended and the plasma began like some sort of psychic field kept it together. Chip feared if he pressed too hard, his fingers might go straight through it; it was like a very thin film. He didn't know if that would hurt Rotom, so he decided it was best to be careful, holding the ghost in his hands like a delicate piece of china.

"Zzzm?" Rotom's electric limb touched one of the rubber gloves in surprise. Chip smiled, then tickled under its chin. Chip didn't feel he was making contact with much, but the electric Pokemon squealed out a giggle, bursting out of his hands and zapping to the other side of the room, where it floated with a grin on its face. "RO-TO!"

"Oh-" Lillie laughed, covering her mouth with one hand. "I think your rotom's ticklish."

Rotom shook its head with a pout. "Zzr!"

"What do you mean, no?" Chip said as Rotom floated back over toward him. "You giggle every time I poke you." Rotom rolled its eyes, then floated over Chip's shoulder, its blue aura barely touching him. Chip turned his head slightly and looked at the ghost, smiling as Rotom made a quiet trilling noise.

Lillie looked at them both with a bittersweet smile on her face. "It seems very attached to you already. I'm sure you'll be great friends... it must have really liked you to step in where… where Popplio was."

Chip felt a rush of cold flood through his body at the mention of Popplio. God, would he feel that way forever? Every time Popplio's name was mentioned he felt like he was going to be sick. "Yeah."

"Kzzrt..." Rotom looked at Chip, worried by the tone of his voice.

"...Rotom," Lillie said. The ghost looked at her, blinking. "Please take care of Chip. I don't want him hurt again… I don't like seeing anyone get hurt. And that Team Skull, I… I just…" She squeezed her hands into fists, frustration on her features. "I wish there was something we could do about them. No one should have to go through this. No one."

"Yeah, well, I don't exactly have the best luck," Chip said, gritting his teeth a little bit. He leaned his head back against the loft wall, rubbing his face. He'd thought his luck was turning around after meeting the professor, but he shouldn't have been so naive. Nothing good lasted forever, not for him. Chip hated being negative, but it was hard not to be when the universe seemed to want to beat him down so badly.

Lillie frowned and opened her mouth to comfort him when the door swung open. Both jolted and looked toward the entrance way, where the professor strode in with Rockruff following after him. Their eyes were bright and clear, though both were dirty, like they'd been training most of the afternoon and early evening.

"Oh, you two are both home!" Kukui called out, sounding delighted. "I was thinking that the three of us could held over to Hau'Oli City and check out their diner. What do you think? I'm pretty hungry—Rockruff and I really built up an appetite."

"Ruff!" Rockruff barked in agreement, bouncing at the mention of food.

When Chip and Lillie didn't immediately respond with delight, the professor frowned and looked at them, moving over to the loft ladder. "Is something wrong? Hey, why is Rotom out of the PokeDex?"

"It's… it's a long story," Chip said. This was exactly what he'd been fearing, that he'd have to tell the story over and over. He tried to come up with something concise, so he wouldn't feel like he was drowning when he tried to explain the situation. Something firm, something to the point. "I got attacked by Team Skull. They stole Popplio from me."

"Excuse me?" Kukui said in disbelief. "They did what?"

"They cheated by attacking Popplio with two pokemon," Chip said, his mouth feeling dry again. He swallowed and tried to continue. The more detail he had to give, the worse he felt, but he knew the professor would want those details. "And when it fainted, they just took its PokeBall… there wasn't anything I could do."

The professor's eyes hardened. Chip had never seen the jovial man looking so furious, but Kukui looked like he was going to blow his top. "Let's go, Chip. We'll get Popplio back for you. This just happened, right? Then they're still in the vicinity, and I assure you, Rockruff can destroy anything they try sending our way." He moved toward the entrance way. "Lillie, you stay here, just in case they're still out there. You'll be safe here."

Chip slowly shook his head. "They knocked me out when they left… it was… over an hour ago. They could be anywhere now."

Kukui took a deep breath. For a moment, Chip wasn't sure if he was going to explode on him for giving him that news. But a moment later, the professor exhaled slowly. "Okay. Then we should get you a new partner."

"I have one," Chip said softly.

"You—...wait, Rotom?" It didn't take the professor long to connect the dots between Chip's statement and the fact that Rotom was out of its PokeDex. "That rotom's your partner now?"

Despite the anger still brewing in Kukui's eyes, he took the moment to look at the two. Rotom had glanced at him briefly, but it was spending most of its time looking at Chip, as if it was worried for him. Amazement slowly overcame the professor's anger. "The kahuna always says a pokemon and its trainer choose each other…." He murmured. "Chip, I know it doesn't make up for losing Popplio, but… I can see this rotom cares about you. The two of you have something really special, even though you've just met."

Chip glanced at Rotom, realizing it'd been looking at him. "Rotom's super sweet, professor… I care a lot about it too."

Rotom blushed and glanced down. "Ro-ro, ro-to-to."

The blond bit his lip a little, then turned toward the professor. "Professor, I feel like Rotom thinks it's not good enough to be my partner. But you know what? It was there for me when all of this happened. It protected me from a rattata even though it'd never fought before, despite being in a dangerous type match-up. I'm honored to have it as my partner… and I swear to god, Team Skull is never touching my rotom. Never."

Rotom was shocked at Chip's words. The boy had nailed exactly how it felt; it really didn't feel like it was good enough to be his partner. But despite that, it was glowing with pride. It knew Chip probably meant to flatter it, but it still couldn't help twirling in the air with happiness, leaving streaks of blue energy in its wake as it whirled around Chip. Could Rotom dare to believe it could be strong? That it could protect Chip? It'd accepted it would never be loved like a partner pokemon, but maybe it'd been wrong. Maybe Chip would.

"I'm so happy I gave you that PokeDex," Kukui said. "I'm glad Rotom was with you. I don't want to think of what would have happened if it hadn't been." He paused, then moved toward the door again. "Let's go talk to the kahuna about this, okay? It's important that he know what Team Skull's doing on his island. After that, I think it'd be nice for us to still go to that diner, if you feel up to it."

Chip glanced at Lillie. "Do you want to?"

Lillie nodded lightly. "I think a meal might help get your mind off things… and telling the kahuna is something we should probably do, yes…"

"Rotom, do you wanna go back in the PokeDex?" Chip asked.

"Zzr!" Rotom nodded, arcing around Chip until it struck the PokeDex. A moment later, the familiar blue eyes and smile of the ghost appeared on the PokeDex, and it floated up until it was beside Chip again.

Admittedly, Rotom worried that the kahuna would insist on giving Chip another one of the pokemon he had. It knew there was still a litten and a rowlet up for grabs (if the kahuna didn't have more popplios), and the possibility of being replaced echoed in Rotom's mind. It tried to ignore those feelings, though, if the kahuna decided to give Chip another pokemon, it wouldn't complain. It wasn't Rotom's place to prevent Chip from getting another strong starter pokemon, but god if it didn't feel utterly depressed at the thought of it.

Chip and Lillie descended from the loft and followed the professor toward the door. Rockruff dashed along beside them, while Chip could hear quiet noises coming from Lillie's gym bag. Rotom had landed on Chip's head again, its arms gently pressed against his temples. He reached up to touch one of Rotom's arms, gently running his thumb along the metal. It was slightly warm.

Kukui and Lillie stepped out the door, but the moment Chip reached that threshold, he felt a noose tighten around his heart. He stood there, hesitating, as he looked out at the darkness around him.

"Zz-zz? Are you okay?" Rotom asked, looking down at him with a frown.

Chip felt like his throat had tightened. He closed his eyes briefly, then forced them open again. His voice came out in a hoarse whisper. "I just feel like they could be hiding out there. And that it'll happen again."

The burning rage that he'd felt before was still there, but slathered under layers of fear and anxiety. It was such a struggle to bring himself to step outside the lab and into the darkness beyond when he didn't know what lie ahead. God, he'd never felt this way before, but he could swear that their eyes were peering from around every corner. Team Skull—watching, waiting for the opportunity to beat him up again and take Rotom from him.

"Chip?" Kukui called out. He and Lillie were already by the base of the hill, where they were waiting for Chip to catch up. "Did you forget something?"

"If you're with your friendzzz, nothing bad can happen," Rotom said quietly. "I know I let you down before, but I'd never let anyone hurt you again."

A bittersweet smile came to Chip's face. He gave a slight nod, then closed the door to the professor's home behind him. Kukui and Lillie were barely visible in the darkness, but he kept their faces in his vision as he walked, stiff and tense. Rotom was right, he shouldn't feel unsafe when he was with Kukui and Lillie, but he just couldn't shake the feeling that Team Skull was watching.

The walk to Iki Town was quiet and uneventful. It seemed everyone in the party was preoccupied by thoughts of their own. When they reached the thatched house that Chip recognized as the kahuna's, he felt an abrupt sense of relief that he'd finally be away from the darkness outside. It was threatening to strangle him, even when surrounded by his closest friends.

Kukui knocked on the door. There was a faint stirring inside, then the sound of a lock click as Hala opened the door.

"Well, I didn't expect to see you three here so quickly," Hala said, stepping back to invite the three in. The professor entered, then Lillie, then finally Chip, drawn like a moth to flame by the lights inside. Rotom floated away from Chip's head so it wouldn't impact the top of the doorway, then drifted beside him. The kahuna turned to smile at them as he closed the door. "Chip, how are those injuries doing? Did you change the bandages?"

"Um…" Chip looked down at his shirt. "No, I forgot. When I got back, I just fell asleep… then when morning came, I ran out to train Popplio..."

"Well, you're here, so we might as well handle them. What happened to your eye?"

Lillie sat down on the couch and looked at her bag, resting her hands over it gently. The professor paced a little as Rockruff hopped up onto the couch and leaned against Lillie. Hala seemed to notice the agitated state Kukui was in, watching his pacing with a slight frown before he looked back over at Chip.

"Is there something I'm missing?" he asked. Chip prepared himself for another iteration of his story, slipping his jacket off so his bandages could be changed, when Hala made a noise of surprise, looking at him with wide eyes. "Chip! The bracelet on your wrist… let me see that, please."

The professor looked over, halting his pacing. "Wait… Is that what I think it is?"

"Pardon?" Lillie asked.

She looked about as confused as Chip felt as he looked down at the bracelet clasped around his wrist. He'd completely forgotten about the items he and Rotom had found after it had pledged to be his partner. He looked at Rotom, but the pokemon looked just as bewildered as he felt, so he shrugged and undid the clasp on the bracelet and held it out to Hala. The kahuna was silent, expression serious, as he took the bracelet. He slowly turned it around in his fingers, studying it in intense detail.

"What izzz he doing?" Rotom asked, tilting to one side as it watched the kahuna.

"This is the Z-Bracelet that went missing today," Hala said. "Where did you get it?"

"Missing?" Chip was taken aback. Surely the kahuna didn't think that he stole it? "Rotom and I found it in the forest, right after we decided to become partners—"

"You and Rotom became partners?" Hala asked, a mystified look on his face. "What about Popplio?"

Chip felt like he was ready to tell the story this time, or at least as ready as he'd ever be, so he took a deep breath and recounted what had happened to him. The kahuna's expression grew more and more serious as he spoke, until he'd reached the end, when he'd found the two items in the forest. At first, he didn't reply right away, he simply looked down at the bracelet, his face a shade darker from anger. Chip wondered with a spike of anxiety if the kahuna was angry at him for having the bracelet when Hala finally spoke.

"I cannot believe Team Skull is stealing pokemon," the Kahuna said, a little growl in his voice. "Chip, please don't worry. I'll set them straight and get your popplio back as soon as I find them. They'll quickly learn why we kahunas are assigned protection over our islands. They won't be continuing any more of that nonsense."

"That's the Z-Bracelet you made for Hau, isn't it?" Kukui asked.

"Yes. I had discovered a pair of shining stones back when I was on my own island challenge. One of them was made into a Z-Bracelet for myself, and the other I decided to keep. I fashioned a Z-Bracelet for him out of the remaining stone as a gift for his eleventh birthday, even if it was a bit belated, but… it had been stolen today."

"I didn't take it," Chip said. "Honestly, I found it in the forest."

"He'zzz telling the truth," Rotom said. "It wazzz left there with this feather."

"I'm not saying I don't believe you," the kahuna said. He took a moment to look at the necklace around Rotom, and the feather that dangled at the end of it. The feather still sparked with electricity. Realization slowly dawned on Hala's features. "…I understand now. The bracelet, this feather… You were visited by the island guardian, Tapu Koko, the deity of Melemele Island. This feather your Rotom is carrying, it's a feather from the crest of Tapu Koko."

Chip stared, dumbfounded, at the kahuna. "What?"

"Tapu Koko?" Rotom's digital jaw dropped.

"You're serious?" Professor Kukui said. "Tapu Koko visited him?"

"Do you mean the pokemon that lives in the ruins?" Lillie asked.

The kahuna just continued, as if they hadn't even spoken. "And this bracelet you found… you said you found it along with the feather?"

"Yeah," Chip said. "They were both under a tree…. I saw some eyes there first, but then the eyes disappeared… the eyes were blue, with a little pink? Something like that… I thought it was just another wild pokemon watching us from the forest."

"That was the island deity. It took this Z-Bracelet from my home and gave it to you. Do you know what a Z-Bracelet is?" The blank look on Chip's face must have indicated he didn't have a clue. "A Z-Bracelet is a rare item that lets you harness the powers of the Z-Crystals. You can get them when you complete island challenges." Hala shook his head a little. "This Z-Bracelet, the feather from its crest… the fact that it went through the trouble of breaking into my home to get the bracelet… Tapu Koko is very interested in you, Chip. Both you and your rotom."

"I don't get it. A deity was watching me? Like, a pokemon god?" Chip asked.

"Tapu Koko is a land spirit pokemon," Rotom said, showing a picture of it on its screen. "It izzz the guardian deity of Melemele Island, but though it's called a guardian deity, it will not necessarily come to your aid if you need help."

"So you're saying this thing could have protected Popplio? It could have prevented it from being stolen?" The surge of anger was impossible to deny. Chip clenched his fists a little, the anger pulsing through him. This deity could have stopped all this?

"Chip…" Lillie said, worry in her gaze.

The kahuna sighed. "Tapu Koko works in mysterious ways. It might not have wanted to help before… but since it left you a feather, one that boosts electric-type moves, it clearly has taken interest in you and your rotom. It may be because of your circumstance, no one can really understand why Tapu Koko does what it does, but you've caught its attention. And it wants to help you now, hence why it left these items for you." Hala handed Chip back the bracelet. He took it, fingers numb as he shakily put the bracelet back onto his wrist. "I'm going to have a wonderful time explaining to my grandson why he won't be getting a Z-Bracelet when I promised him one, though."

"You want me to keep it?" Chip asked. "But… but it's his, right? Maybe it's best if I give it back to him… if it belongs to him, then it's not right for me to take it."

"Don't be silly," Hala said. "If Tapu Koko took this bracelet and gave it to you, then you are who it is meant to be with. We cannot defy the will of the gods. Hau will be disappointed, but… if he's meant to have a bracelet as well, then the deity will bless him with a shining stone of his own."

"Hau is fairly laidback when it comes to battling and the island challenge," Kukui said. "I don't think he'll be that disappointed."

"I'd really like for him to meet you, Chip. The two of you are the same age," the kahuna said. "But when he chose a starter a few days before you arrived, he ran off immediately to challenge the Verdant Cavern. I think that's where you should go as well. Ensure your rotom is strong enough, then go and face the challenge in the Verdant Cavern as well. Your friendship will be tested, as well as your rotom's strength, but… if Tapu Koko has this much faith in you, I think you will succeed."

Chip still felt numb, but he nodded. "Okay. I'll do it, Roro and I will challenge the first trial."

He didn't know what made him feel worse: the fact that he had lost Popplio, or that some deity had watched him lose his partner and didn't bother intervening. It could have done something, but it hadn't found him important enough… not until he forged his partnership with Rotom. Chip didn't know what that meant, but there was still part of him that felt furious about it. He wished he could yell at Tapu Koko, ask it why—why? Why didn't it do anything?

But he knew he would never come face to face with a deity. And who was he to demand answers of a god, anyway?

"Chip?" Rotom sounded uncertain. "Do you want me prepare a map with a path to Verdant Cavern? Zzz? I can have it ready for when you'd like to go."

"Y-Yeah," Chip said, stirring out of his thoughts.

"Ilima's the one who runs that trial," Kukui said. "At least I think it's him—he was promoted right after graduating from that trainer school, right? He's a very sweet fellow — he'll help you in any way he can. The Verdant Cavern is just north of Hau'oli City—oh! Speaking of Hau, have you heard if he's passed the Verdant Cavern? It seems like he's rushing."

"He does tend to do that. And no, I haven't heard from him," the kahuna said with a sigh. He reached to put a hand on Chip's shoulder. "Chip… I know this is difficult for you. You and Popplio had a bond, I could see that when you chose each other. But I can see just as clearly that you and this rotom chose each other too. And I suspect the bond you two have is even stronger than the one you had with Popplio, as hard as it is to believe. Please don't let your sorrow for Popplio damper your trust in your rotom. It's easy to lose faith, but it's much harder to build back trust once you do. Tapu Koko believes in you and Rotom. Never forget that."

"I won't forget it." Chip reached out for Rotom, holding it gently in his arms. Rotom looked up at him and smiled, a depth of emotion in its blue eyes.

Hala watched the way Rotom looked at Chip. He had never seen a pokemon look at its trainer that way—not so early in their relationship. If he didn't know better, he might have assumed that rotom already loved its trainer... at the very least, he could tell their bond was immensely strong, and it would make harnessing the power of the Z-Crystals all the more easier. Something special would become of those two, he simply knew it.

"Well, Hala… we were planning on going to the Hau'Oli Diner, if you'd like to come with us," Kukui said. "We're all starved, and there's no better discussion than one held over dinner. I bet between the two of us, we can come up with a plan to thrash those Team Skull cowards. I still can't believe they dared to steal a pokemon under your watch."

"Oh yes, I'd be happy to join you," Hala said. "And you're very right. Team Skull is going to wish they never stepped foot on Melemele Island."

* * *

 **A/N: How do you think Rotom did in its first battle? If you were Rotom's trainer, how would you encourage it to fight? Comment below and let me know what you think!**


	6. Chapter 6: The Big City

**FEARFUL OF THE NIGHT**

By: Cy Mendoza

* * *

 **CHAPTER 6**

THE BIG CITY

Chip's head hurt as he stepped out of the kahuna's home. The darkness had a suffocating element to it, and no amount of logic could argue with his nerves—yes, the kahuna himself was there and absolutely nothing bad could happen, but the tension in his muscles didn't believe him. No amount of 'everything is fine' could solve the shakiness in his gait as he followed Hala and Kukui, and judging from the way Lillie was looking at him, with her lips pressed into a hard line and brow furrowed, she had noticed.

"Are you okay?" she said. "Maybe we shouldn't walk to the diner…"

The professor and kahuna stopped to look behind themselves at the two. Chip felt his heart rate kick up. "Nah, I'm fine. I'm just a little tired, and probably hungry too."

While this satisfied the two men, and they jumped into a conversation about how they would handle the Team Skull problem, Lillie didn't look quite as convinced. She watched him with evaluating green eyes for a long couple of moments as they walked together, her fingers tapping against the shoulder strap of her bag.

"You're sure?" she asked.

"Hunger makes you shaky, right?" Chip said, putting on a pleasant tone.

"Do you think there izzz something wrong with him?" Rotom asked. It'd floated out of the kahuna's house and lingered behind Chip for a moment before speeding up so it could rest on his head again. It seemed Rotom preferred that perch. "I'm not the best at reading human expressionzzz…"

"No, you two are being silly," Chip said. "I'm fine."

Lillie still didn't look like she believed him, but she nonetheless nodded, as if accepting the lie for now. Chip stared straight ahead, watching the two men ahead blur around him. He could see tall grass in the peripherals of his vision, and something in his head screamed that he was being watched. He couldn't see eyes reflecting the light in the darkness, but somehow he could feel they were there. Watching. Waiting.

The anxiety burned inside Chip's stomach like a bubbling acid, making his belly and chest feel tight. He moderated his breathing so he wouldn't breathe too quickly and alert Lillie or Rotom to his state. In. Out. In. Out. It was almost mechanical, and he counted the seconds between each breath. His hands felt so clammy, but he shoved them into his pockets.

His heart jumped when he saw a blur in the corner of his eye. He turned quickly to look, knocking Rotom off his head with the abruptness of his movement. "Zzr!"

"Agh, sorry," Chip said. It was just Lillie adjusting her hat. She glanced at him briefly then finished fixing her hat. Chip could hear Rotom making a quiet noise as it floated in a circle around him, but he couldn't bring himself to look the ghost in the eyes. His eyes felt like a betrayal, like his partner would be able to see past his mask and into the tension rooting itself deep in his body.

Rotom floated in front of him as he walked, its gaze searching his face. When it couldn't catch Chip's eye, it leaned to the left and the right, then frowned. Mystified, Rotom floated back up so it could rest on Chip's head. It didn't understand why he didn't want to look at it, but maybe it wasn't as dramatic as that. Maybe Chip was just really interested in the scenery around them. All of this was new to Chip, right? That had to be it. Rotom nodded to itself slightly as it set its arms against Chip's head.

As the group neared the city, the lights beckoned Chip, relieving some of the tension in his muscles like the heat of the sun. He let out a heavy breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding as they strolled along the main road of Hau'Oli City. With the light pollution coming from all the neon signs and streetlights, it almost felt like daytime if he didn't look upwards. Chip rubbed his eyes. How was he going to do the island challenge when he couldn't even function during the nighttime?

"The diner's just a little further up," Kukui said. "Everyone doing okay back there?"

"We didn't leave any of you behind, did we?" Hala asked.

"Oh no, we kept up!" Lillie said with a giggle. "I'm really looking forward to a meal."

Chip's twisting stomach slowly unknotted itself. Now that he was in the light, he didn't feel as sick as he had before, and his appetite was steadily returning. He hadn't eaten anything all day, he realized, and hunger was catching up to him. He just hoped that the feeling wouldn't come back after they left the diner, not when he had a stomach full of food. That sounded like disaster. "I just want to eat!" he said, hoping it sounded convincing.

"I hear you there, cousin," Kukui said, pushing open the door to the diner.

Despite the size of the city, the diner was a bit on the cramped side. There was a bar to the left, where patrons could sit at the stools and chat with each other and the bartender, and to the right was the dining area, with only six tables. Three of those tables were occupied, all by couples, and half of the bar was full. The concierge at the front smiled as the group entered.

"Why, it's nice to see you again, Kahuna Hala," he said, "And Professor Kukui as well! What an honor it will be for us to serve both of you. And this lovely young girl and boy are…?"

"My name's Chip." He gave a little awkward wave, and Rotom did the same.

"And I'm Lillie." She smiled back politely, adjusting her bag.

"We're just fixing for food! I hope you have plenty for us," Kukui said, with Rockruff barking in agreement right beside him. "We might eat you out of all your supplies!"

Chip zoned out through the majority of the dinner, perhaps because the main topic was Team Skull, and Chip didn't want to think about why that was the conversation at hand. He knew he should focus, but it was hard when his mind kept wandering back to how he'd felt when he was outside. Was this going to be permanent? He picked at the spaghetti he'd ordered, lost in his thoughts. Sure, maybe he could travel in the daytime only, but Rotom would likely ask why he insisted on going indoors when the night fell… and it didn't make sense anyway. And it made Chip feel like a child. His ceremony had marked his movement into adulthood, and adults weren't afraid of the dark!

"Kzzzzrt!" Rotom hissed, its aura sparking in frustration. Chip looked over at Rotom and smiled. The pokemon had been given a plate of PokeBeans to feast on during the meal, and as a result, Rotom had come out of the PokeDex to eat (as its digital mouth certainly couldn't bite any food). But every time Rotom tried to pick up a PokeBean, it accidentally fried it with its electric aura. Rotom had once again fried another PokeBean, leaving it a blackened and smoking mess, one that was certainly no longer delicious.

Rockruff barked out a laugh. "Ruff!"

"Rockruff, that's not very nice," Lillie said with a frown. "It's probably very hungry…"

"Ruff!" Rockruff picked up a PokeBean in its mouth and continued laughing at Rotom.

"Ro-to-to! Ro-ro!" Rotom snapped back, its electricity arcing even higher around it. This only seemed to amuse Rockruff even more as the puppy swallowed down its PokeBean and stuck its tongue out at the ghost.

"Rockruff, don't start a battle at the dinner table," Kukui said.

"Calm down, calm down," Chip said, leaning down to root through his backpack for the rubber gloves. "Stop ruining all your PokeBeans, I'll help you." As Rotom watched him with a displeased look on its face, Chip slipped one of the gloves on and picked up a pale pink PokeBean between two fingers. He then held it out toward the ghost.

Rotom scowled at the PokeBean, as if disbelieving the idea would work, then leaned forward to try biting it. The delighted squeak that followed told Chip his idea had worked. Rotom finished the rest of the PokeBean and immediately took off, zapping around the heads of everyone seated at the table.

"You still have those gloves I gave you?" Hala asked, glancing at Chip for a moment before he watched Rotom whirl around their heads. "Rubber gloves to touch your electric pokemon… yes, I suppose that would work, wouldn't it? That's quite a smart idea."

"It was Lillie's idea," Chip said, smiling at the girl.

Lillie shrugged, looking a little embarrassed. "It just came to me, knowing that electricians use rubber to insulate themselves from electricity… I figured the same would be true for pokemon, too."

"This is why you're my assistant!" Kukui said. "One day, I'd love to see you become a professor, too."

Lillie's cheeks turned pink as she hid her face away in her hands. "You really think so, professor?"

Chip smiled at the exchange, then reached for another PokeBean and held it out. It wasn't a second later that Rotom dashed straight for it, coming to a halt just a fraction away from Chip's hand so it could munch on the next PokeBean. This time, Rotom managed to contain its excitement as it finished up the bean and looked at Chip for more, chirping in happiness. Chip was grateful for the distraction; it was easy to forget the anxieties boiling away in his chest when he saw how content Rotom was.

"Did you not like your meal?" Hala asked. "If it didn't suit you, I'm sure they'd be happy to replace it."

"Oh—" Chip glanced down. He hadn't touched his meal much, but his stomach still ached with hunger. The thoughts were a little quieter now, and that made all the difference. "I'm still going to eat it. I just got distracted."

The rest of the meal was a blur as Chip focused on forcing down his food and feeding Rotom when it chirped at him for a PokeBean. It was illogical to Chip how many PokeBeans that tiny creature could eat, but he figured many things about Pokemon didn't make much sense. It was only after the fifth PokeBean that Rotom refused another, moving over to his shoulder to rest there with its eyes closed—in a food coma, perhaps.

Hala reached for the bill the moment it arrived. "I have this one covered," he said. "It was quite kind of you to invite me along to your dinner."

"Thank you, sir," Chip and Lillie said at the same time. They looked at each other and giggled a little.

The kahuna smiled at them. "Perhaps we should make this a regular thing—I certainly like getting caught up with your research, Kukui."

"And I like hearing your plans to dismantle Team Skull," the professor said. "The sooner we get moving on that, the better."

"I'm going to contact the other kahunas and see what we can do," Hala said. "I can keep Team Skull off Melemele Island, but it doesn't help much if they're going to base their operations somewhere else. I heard rumors they took over Po Town in Ula'ula Island, and if that's true, then I'll need to get hold of Nanu."

"I thought Nanu disappeared?" Kukui asked.

"That's what I heard too. But knowing him, he's probably still kicking around the island."

"He always did seem to enjoy living off the grid."

As the kahuna and professor stood up, pushing their chairs back under the table, Chip and Lillie followed. Chip felt a sinking sensation in his stomach as they approached the doorway, where through a window he could see the night awaiting him. It seemed the moment he crossed that threshold, the darkness reminded him of his fears like a punch in the gut. He took in a deep breath. There was nothing to be afraid of, Team Skull would certainly not attack the kahuna and the professor.

"Well, here's where I'll be leaving you," Hala said as they approached the road leading north toward Iki Town. "I hope to see all of you soon—especially you, Chip. When you've finished the first and only trial here on Melemele Island, your final task here will be to face me in a battle. I'm going to be looking forward to that; I want to see you and your rotom grow."

Chip looked at the kahuna in surprise. "I'm going to be battling you?"

"That's the final trial at the end of each individual island challenge," the professor said. "Each island has a kahuna, and you battle with the kahuna after finishing the trials on that island. Since Melemele only has one trial, then your second and final one is to defeat the kahuna, who happens to be old Hala here."

"Hey, I'm not that old," Hala said with a laugh. "Don't sweat it, Chip. You'll do fine as long as you and Rotom believe in each other and train hard."

Chip looked at Rotom. He wasn't convinced Rotom would be very thrilled at this prospect, but the ghost was snoozing away. Somehow, it was able to stay floating above his shoulder, even when he moved around. Pokemon really were peculiar. "We will. I promise we'll make you proud, sir."

Lillie had a thoughtful look in her eye as they waved goodbye to the kahuna. Chip was halfway tempted to ask her what she was thinking about, but then the professor started moving again, and Chip hurried to follow him. The tiny group was at the very edge of the city when Chip reached up to touch his backpack strap—and realized with a start that it wasn't there. "Oh god!" he said, his heart thundering in his chest. "I forgot my backpack in the diner!"

"Zzr?" Rotom mumbled, opening its eyes slightly.

"It had the PokeDex in it!" Chip said. God, he felt so stupid! How could he forget that? He brought his backpack everywhere since Kukui gave it to him, and now he looked like an idiot for leaving it behind.

The professor laughed. "Do you want us to wait for you here?"

"No, no, it's okay," Chip said, his eyes wide. "I'll go get it, and…" Well, he wouldn't be going back to the lab in this darkness, and certainly not alone. No, the thought of that made him want to throw up. Having Rotom with him was a comfort, but this anxiety he battled was something else entirely. It seemed it only lessened when he was with the professor or kahuna, and he couldn't inconvenience the professor any more than he already had with his presence. He simply couldn't. "I might stay the night in the city… if it's okay with you?"

"You don't have to ask me, cousin," the professor said. "It's your journey, you can come and go as you please."

"Ah," Lillie said, "If you don't mind, I wanted to try shopping tomorrow... if it's all the same to you, I'd help you split the hotel bill…"

"Honestly, Lillie. You should ask the kahuna for a pokemon, or try training that cosmog. I think you'd make a fantastic trainer, and you and Chip could face the trials together," the professor said, leaning back on his heels in thought.

Lillie puffed her cheeks out and shook her head. "It's not right for me. I don't want to make pokemon fight." She looked at Chip. "Um, but if you'd rather be in a hotel room alone, I'd understand…"

Chip shrugged. "I don't mind. Cosmog might like being able to stretch its… er… clouds, anyway."

"I'm sure it would," Lillie said, giggling.

"Leaving me alone in the lab… I see how it is," the professor said, his voice light with amusement. Both Lillie and Chip were about to protest when the professor held a hand up and chuckled. "I'm joking. I'm glad to see both of you getting out of the house and exploring Alola. It's better for you if you wander off on your own and learn more about this place—and I'm even happier when you're doing it with friends."

The lightness of his tone was underscored by a faint warning. Chip knew exactly what the professor was referring to—Chip had wandered out on his own and gotten attacked by Team Skull, but it was less likely they would try that again if they were in a group. In that way, he found himself mentally attaching to Lillie. Even if she didn't want to become a trainer, maybe she would want to travel with him? It wasn't like he would ask her—that would be too embarrassing—but if she decided to join his journey of her own volition, well, he certainly wouldn't complain.

At first, Chip dreaded the moment when the professor would leave their group and head back to the lab. He could feel the anxiety ramping up the moment the professor disappeared down the road, but he tried to bury it by focusing on Lillie. "Do you like the island at night?"

"I do," Lillie said. "I like looking up at the stars… they're so beautiful. You can't see them that well from here in Hau'oli City, but when you're on some of the darker parts of the island… there are so many stars that I fear I'd never be able to count them all."

Chip glanced upwards. Lillie was right, the light pollution had an effect on the visibility of the stars, but he could still see the particularly bright ones twinkling past the flood of city lights. The night could be so beautiful, and it helped soothe his anxiety a little.

"Do you guys make the stars into constellations the same way we do in Kanto?" Chip asked.

Lillie nodded. "Mm-hmm. If you look at that star right above us, it connects into a constellation that looks kind of like a bulbasaur, don't you think?"

He stared at the stars for a moment before he smiled. "Yeah, I think I see it. Like, that's the body, and then that's the seed on its back."

The lights of the city comforted him again as they strolled down the pedestrian walkway bordering the main road passing through the city. Hau'oli City reminded Chip of the mega-cities back in Kanto. The big city had always appealed to him, and smaller towns—like the sleepy little town he had lived in before—always made him feel out of place somehow. It was a strange feeling, the way he imagined a goldfish might feel its growth was restricted by a fishbowl. Like his heart and soul belonged to skyscrapers and streets packed with people from all walks of life. While Alola in general felt remote, the city made him feel at home again as he stared up at its blinking lights.

Their first stop was the diner, where Chip picked up his backpack, and more importantly, pulled out the PokeDex for Rotom. He had to poke the ghost a few times with a rubber insulated glove before it woke up, but Rotom entered the PokeDex as soon as it was conscious, sensing that was what Chip wanted it to do.

"Don't you ever get tired, Chip? Zzz?" the ghost yawned.

"Oh, sorry. Should we find the hotel, Lillie?" he asked.

"I'm a little tired too… and we could relax a little and watch television before we go to sleep." She looked down at her bag, as if she felt bad for keeping Cosmog in there for so long. The pokemon hadn't complained, and it hadn't slipped out, so maybe it was sleeping too.

With Rotom being half-asleep and Chip feeling on the edge of nauseated, resting in the hotel room sounded nice. He nodded and gave Rotom a little poke. "Do you think you could help us find where the hotel is?"

"Sure thing, bucko," Rotom mumbled, blinking its eyes open again. The map appeared on its screen, and a flag dropped on a building that Chip assumed was the hotel. Rotom's eyes closed again, but it forced them open with another yawn.

"Your rotom's so tired…" Lillie said, looking at it.

"Yeah, Roro ate itself into a food coma," Chip said with a light chuckle, reaching to hold the ghost. Usually Rotom squirmed a little when held, but it didn't complain this time, its eyes sliding shut again. The map stayed open on its screen, so it must not have been too asleep, but at least Chip felt better now that he was carrying his exhausted partner. "Even if Rotom falls asleep, I have a good idea of where the hotel is now. It's that way." He gestured.

Just as Chip predicted, Rotom fell fast asleep in his arms, and its map dimmed until the steadily rotating magnifying glass replaced it. He looked down at the tired pokemon with a light smile. Rotom looked so peaceful when it was sleeping.

When the two reached the hotel, Lillie opened the door politely for her companion, and Chip strolled through with a nod of thanks. Chip slipped Rotom into his backpack, leaving it partially open in case the pokemon woke up, then he and Lillie pooled their money, each taking on half the cost of the room. Armed with a hotel key each, the two ventured toward the elevators so they could reach the third floor, where their room was located.

The room looked cozy and very clean, and two beds awaited them. Lillie picked the one closest to the door while Chip took the one by the window. He set his backpack on the nightstand and pulled Rotom out, disturbing the ghost from its sleep enough that Rotom opened one of its eyes.

"Did I fall asleep? Zz-zzz?" Rotom looked around. "Oh no! I didn't leave you without the map, did I?"

"You were fine. Go back to sleep," Chip said. He set the ghost against one of the pillows, propping it up a little then tucking the comforter around it. Rotom made a noise of delight, its eyes closing again as it fell rapidly asleep.

"Pew!" Cosmog squeaked excitedly, flying out of Lillie's bag the moment she opened it. So much for thinking the psychic pokemon was asleep. It seemed as energetic as ever as it floated around, looking at each of the furnishings in the room. In the meantime, Lillie set her hat on the desk and slid under the covers with a light sigh. After exploring the room a little, Cosmog came back to Lillie, settling next to her on one of the pillows.

"I think I'm more tired than I thought," Lillie murmured, reaching to pull the psychic pokemon closer to her. It let out a quiet cooing noise and nuzzled into her side.

"Same," Chip said, reaching to turn out the light. "Goodnight, Lillie."

"Goodnight, Chip…"

Chip lay awake for a long couple of moments, listening to the sound of Lillie's breathing. The image of Cosmog snuggled against her left two thoughts spinning around in his mind. It reminded him of Popplio...but at the same time, it made him want to wake up Rotom and invite it to come snuggle next to him. The ache in his heart when he thought of Popplio seemed to lessen when he imagined himself holding the small orange ghost, and he almost felt the ache went away when he thought about how happy Rotom was when he showed it affection.

The blond turned on his side and looked at the glowing screen of his partner beside him. The magnifying glass was rotating slowly; his partner looked so serene when asleep. Rotom deserved that rest; he'd pushed the poor ghost so far today, and Rotom had kept up with all the challenges of being his partner. It made him feel bad to wake it up. Nevertheless...

He scooted closer to the sleeping ghost and tapped one finger gently against its screen. The touch made Rotom's blue eyes snap open. "Chip?"

"Shhh," the boy said. "Lillie's sleeping. Can you go into your normal form?"

Rotom blinked in confusion, still disoriented from having been asleep, then the screen turned dark and its eyes closed. The orange ghost popped out of the machine with a wide yawn, looking at Chip with heavily blinking eyes. It almost looked like bags had formed under its eyes as it stared at Chip sleepily, waiting to see what he wanted it to do.

Chip reached to cup the ghost in his hands, then hesitated when he realized he wasn't wearing the rubber gloves. But Rotom was too tired to notice, its eyes partially closed as it moved to settle into the boy's hands. Chip tensed, expecting a shock, but there was only a warm electrical sensation pulsing over his hands, a sensation that tickled his fingers but didn't cause him any pain.

"Roro," he whispered.

"Zzzr?" The ghost opened its eyes a little more. As the seconds ticked by and Chip didn't respond—he was mesmerized by the fact that he could touch his partner without the gloves—Rotom started to fall asleep again. But Chip pulled the ghost close to him, stirring Rotom from slumber again. "Ro-to-to…"

"I'm holding you…" The words slipped out in a quiet murmur from the blond's lips.

Rotom was confused for a moment in its sleepiness, but as its blue eyes focused on the boy's hands, it realized what had happened. Rotom's eyes shot open as it darted out of Chip's hands, wings fluttering wildly, then it looked at him with worry, concerned it might have hurt him. But Chip's face was gentle, his eyes, soft. Rotom stared, half apprehensive and half in disbelief.

"You can do it," Chip whispered. He reached out to touch Rotom's face. The ghost leaned back, cautious that its electrical aura could hurt him, then squeezed its eyes shut, wings fluttering nervously. Chip brushed his thumb down the ghost's cheek, feeling the unusual complexion of its body. Electric, for sure, but almost liquid too, yet a liquid that didn't come off on his fingers. It felt so different than when he was holding Rotom with gloves.

Rotom's eyes carefully opened as it looked at Chip. "Ro-ro-to… Ro-ro?"

"You can control your electricity," Chip said, his voice barely a whisper. "You didn't trust me in the past...I think that's why you shocked me when we first met. But we trust each other now… and I think your electricity is proof of that."

Rotom hung in the air, hesitating, then its eyes widened slightly as it zapped toward Chip's chest at full speed. Chip reached his arms out to accept the little ghost, cuddling it as he snuggled back into the blankets. He could feel the electricity coming off Rotom's wings, but it was a comforting sensation, a light tingling. Chip would have never expected he could hold his partner like this, not without the protection of the gloves. Rotom must have been generating a very low amount of electricity right now, an amount that wasn't dangerous to him.

Rotom looked up at him, fluttering its wings. "Ro-ro…"

Chip moved the ghost, cuddling it in the crook of his arm as he lay down into the blankets. He felt just like Lillie now, close to his partner and trusted by it. It was a feeling he hadn't gotten since he'd curled up on the professor's bed with Popplio in his arms. He looked down at Rotom, who was staring at him thoughtfully. "Get some sleep," he murmured.

The ghost didn't say anything, but it did continue staring at him. What was Rotom thinking? Chip wished he could know, but he wouldn't ask it to go back into the PokeDex to speak with him. He'd have to let his heart figure this one out. As he looked into those blue eyes, he felt happiness and pride radiating off Rotom—happiness that it could be close to him, and pride that it had learned to moderate its electricity enough to deserve the first. Greater than those, though, was the exhaustion that leaked from every pore of the ghost's body. Rotom really did need to sleep.

"Come on… get some rest." Chip tickled under the ghost's chin, delighting in the instantaneous squeaks that arose, though the ghost didn't dart away from him like it usually did. Rotom refused to move from the crook of his arm, though it did flail its wings while it giggled. "Gonna sleep now?" he whispered.

"Ro-to!" the ghost whispered back, turning and hugging its wings to him. Chip watched, satisfied, as those blue eyes closed and Rotom nuzzled its face into his arm.

As he looked down at the ghost's happy expression, Chip felt warmth seeping through his heart. He rubbed his thumb over Rotom's head spike, much to the delight of the small ghost, who started making a soft, electrical purring noise. He continued the gentle stroking until Rotom's noises petered off into silence, its eyes fully closed and expression calm again.

Chip, too, let sleep pull him into unconsciousness. There were no dreams, just a sensation of empty time that flew by, of hours passing in mere heartbeats.

When he woke, he felt the strange sensation of something watching him, and the faint sound of voices just beyond his comprehension—not in words he recognized, but in something else entirely. His eyes cracked open to find Cosmog perched right on his nightstand, inches away from his face, the psychic smiling widely as it stared at him.

"Umm…" Chip sat up slightly, looking at Cosmog in confusion, then down toward his arms. Rotom's blue eyes looked back up at him, and the ghost made a noise of delight when it saw he was awake. Chip wondered if the voices he had heard were Cosmog and Rotom talking. "Did you sleep well?"

"Zzzzt!" Rotom waved its wings a little and nuzzled into his arm. Chip had grown so used to the electrical sensation throughout the night that he realized he didn't feel it anymore, not unless he was concentrating.

"Pew! Pew, pew!" Cosmog said with a giggle, then floated back toward Lillie's bed. It was then that Chip realized she wasn't in the bed. The sound of the shower hinted at where she was at, but he still felt a clench in his heart knowing she trusted him. After all, she left Cosmog with him while she was in the bathroom.

"Why don't you play with Cosmog, huh?" Chip said, moving his arms. Rotom floated beside him with a smile, then nodded and dashed after the psychic pokemon. Their little chirps and laughs filled the room as the two chased each other around. Chip stretched, then leaned back against the pillows to watch them. There truly was no greater happiness than seeing two pokemon playing like that. It was nice seeing Rotom so happy, and he imagined that Cosmog very rarely got a chance to play with others, except for maybe the professor's pokemon.

It was about ten minutes later that Lillie emerged from the bathroom, her hair freshly styled, a new outfit on. She had her previous day's clothes folded over her arm, and she placed them into the bag she kept Cosmog in. As she glanced around, watching the pokemon chase each other, she then realized Chip was awake with a gasp. "Oh! I thought you were still asleep?"

"I woke up a little while ago," Chip said with another stretch. Now that he wasn't feeling so numb from constant electrical exposure, he could feel the ache in his body where his injuries were. Yet, still, he felt much better than he had the day before.

"Do you want to shower before we go shopping?" Lillie asked, then backpedaled in embarrassment. "If you want to go, that is—I know you've been meaning to train Rotom."

Chip looked at the ghost. It zoomed around Cosmog in a circle, a blur of blue and orange, as the psychic waved its little cloud arms. Rotom looked so happy right now, and he didn't really want to stress it out so early in the day. "Maybe a little shopping would be a good idea. It's not like we're in a rush to take on the challenges… there's no time limit, right?"

"Right. The only limits are the ones you place on yourself." Lillie smiled at him then watched the two playing. "Look at them… they're having so much fun…"

"Ro-to!" Rotom zoomed over, stopping in front of Lillie's face, then grinned and dashed back over to Cosmog. Rotom was so fast that Cosmog was having trouble keeping up with it, though Chip noticed Rotom slowed down a couple of times, enough that Cosmog could catch it with its cloudy arms. Rotom squirmed whenever it was caught and wiggled out of the psychic's grip, zooming around in it in a blur of color again.

"Play nice, Roro," Chip called out. The ghost paused and looked at him, then nodded obediently.

Chip didn't have any replacement clothes for a shower, but he also felt like cleaning his injuries was a necessity at this point. The bandages under his clothes were starting to smell a bit sour, so even if he didn't have new clothes, he didn't have much of a choice. Besides, he could get some new clothes with the money the professor gave him, even if it was just a new shirt. That would be easy to change.

"Keep an eye on Rotom for me, please?" Chip said as he headed into the bathroom. It was humid from Lillie's shower, and condensation clung to the glass of the bathroom mirror.

"I will," she called after him.

As Chip undressed, tossed the old bandages, and got into the shower, he wondered if Lillie ever expected Cosmog would get a chance to play with another pokemon outside the professor's home. It made him happy to know that Rotom could give the other companionship, and the same was true in reverse. Rotom seemed a bit lonely at times, and he worried he needed to catch more pokemon to keep it company. He'd be sure to do so today. Maybe if he got lucky, he'd run into a pichu here in the grasslands inside Hau'Oli City. Just the thought of it filled him with excitement, enough to push through the pain of washing his wounds. God, they stung!

When he emerged from the shower, Lillie was sitting on the bed with a book open in her hands. Cosmog was resting to her right, and Rotom to her left, both of them looking at the book as she quietly read out the words. Chip lingered near the exit of the bathroom, not wanting to disturb her as he listened to the story. This must have been something she did with Cosmog all the time, and Rotom looked thrilled to be included. Chip also noticed that Rotom was resting against her arm, and clearly no harm was coming to her. It trusted her, too.

Lillie looked up at the end of the sentence, catching Chip's gaze. "Oh, are you ready?"

"I think so," Chip said, picking up the PokeDex. Rotom didn't need to be told anything, it immediately darted into it and stretched out its limbs. "You ready, Roro?"

"Shopping, zzt!" Rotom exclaimed, waving its arms in excitement. "I want a hat, pleazzze!"

"A hat? Would a hat fit you?" Chip wondered, looking at Rotom's head spike.

"I'm sure we can find something," Lillie said with a giggle. She held open her bag, and Cosmog whined softly before disappearing inside it. "I know, I know," she murmured, running her hand gently over the psychic's head. "If it was safe for me to take you out, I would… but you know what could happen. The worst that could happen."

As Lillie zipped the bag up, Chip exchanged glances with Rotom. Lillie almost made it sound like something worse could happen than Cosmog being stolen. He wanted so badly to know what had happened between the girl and her pokemon, but he knew it wasn't his place to ask. Nonetheless, wild thoughts bounced around in his head as he strapped his backpack on, then nodded at Rotom. The ghost flashed him a look of delight and darted toward the door, where it waited for him.

"All right!" Chip said, holding the door open for Lillie and Rotom. "Let's see what Hau'Oli City has to offer!"

* * *

 **A/N: Do you like seeing Lillie often in the story? Comment below and let me know what you think!**


	7. Chapter 7: Emergency

**FEARFUL OF THE NIGHT**

By: Cy Mendoza

* * *

 **CHAPTER 7**

EMERGENCY

"Aww, you look so cute!" Lillie said with a giggle as she tied a blue ribbon around Rotom's head spike. She was sitting in a chair and had Rotom in her arms, holding it still while she tied the ribbon. They were all in the clothing store.

The ghost squirmed in her grip, waving its arms. "But I wanted a hat, zzt! Not a ribbon!"

"It matches your eyes," she said, making a little bow with the ends of the ribbon. "There, what do you think, Chip?"

"I think poor Roro looks a bit miserable," Chip said, holding back a laugh, but it was futile. He cracked up laughing when Rotom made a face of desperation at him. "Honestly, Roro, this is probably as good as it gets. None of these hats are going to fit you." He picked up a baseball cap and set it on Rotom's head spike. It hung off limply, and when the ghost moved away from Lillie, the cap fell off.

Rotom floated in front of the store's mirror, frowning at its appearance. It tried to grab the ends of the ribbon with its arms, but couldn't reach them. Finally, the ghost gave up, floating over to Chip and looking up at him with sad eyes. "Pleazzze, can't you get me a hat?"

"If you can find a hat that you think would fit you, then I'd be happy to," Chip said, holding up a t-shirt. It reminded him of the one he was wearing, but it had more white stripes along the bottom of the shirt and the sleeves. It was the same gold color as the one he was wearing. Gold had always been his favorite color.

Rotom pouted then floated away, looking for a hat that would fit it. Chip was right, though, they'd all been made to fit a human's head. Chip chuckled as he watched Rotom try on a couple of hats—none of which fit it—then turned toward the cash register, handing the t-shirt he'd chosen over to the attendant on the other side of the counter.

The professor had been generous with his gift to the boy, but no amount of money could last forever. Chip really needed to get moving when it came to training Rotom so he could fight other trainers and make some cash of his own. It also reminded him he needed to get some PokeBalls, which he hoped would be the next stop.

"Did you find something you liked?" Chip asked as Lillie came up to him with a new bag in hand. Cosmog's bag was still strapped over her shoulder. She must've found something, because the bag looked full of clothes.

"Just a new outfit I might try… but I don't know," Lillie said. "I'm not sure if I'd look good in it…" She shook her head slightly. "Oh, but I bought that ribbon for Rotom! It sure looks cute with it on."

Chip glanced at Rotom and laughed at its defeated expression. "C'mon, Roro, you should enjoy looking cute, shouldn't you?"

Rotom's screen turned pink with embarrassment. "Cute? M-Me? Zzt!"

The two walked side-by-side as they headed toward the pokemon center, Rotom having landed on Chip's head as it usually did. Rotom liked the perch, it allowed it to be close to Chip while also giving it the ability to keep an eye over everything around it. If anything looked like it could pose a danger to the boy, Rotom could jump into action immediately.

Lillie slowed on the path, causing Chip to glance back at her. "Oh… there's a fountain over there, through the path in the tall grass."

"A fountain?" Rotom said. "Let'zzz go take pictures by it!"

Chip scuttled back to where Lillie was standing, squinting through the grass. There was indeed a path in the grass that led into what looked like a small park. A single fountain stood in the center of a circle of cobblestone, one that stretched a good twenty feet across. The fountain was a display of a gyarados, with a number of magikarp surrounding it. Each one had a stream of water coming out of its mouth, but the biggest one came from the gyarados, as if it were using the Hydro Pump move. The fountain looked to be marble.

"It is a pretty nice looking fountain," Chip said. "Do you wanna take pictures, Lillie?"

"I'd love to," she said with a smile.

The two walked down the pathway until they approached the fountain. It was much larger than it had seemed now that they were closer to it, almost like the marble statue of the gyarados was life size. Not that Chip had ever seen a gyarados before—they were too rare and difficult to train back where he came from. Everyone he'd known around him had rattata and caterpies, and sometimes a butterfree if someone had worked hard enough.

"It's beautiful," Lillie said with a gasp, looking up at the fountain. She then leaned down and set her bags down, then looked at Chip with a smile. "Should we take the photos here?"

"Yes, this izzz good!" Rotom said, turning around so it could point its camera at the two. Chip set his bag down as well, then moved slightly so the bags wouldn't be in the shot. As Lillie posed beside him, he could hear the sound of Rotom's camera clicking with each shot. The ghost returned to Chip and showed him the photos on its screen. "What do you think of thezzze?"

Rotom had gotten both of them perfectly centered in the shot. It had taken them from a couple different angles too, as well as close up shots and more distant shots that encompassed the entire fountain in the background. "They look wonderful, Rotom. You did such a great job," Lillie said. The ghost grinned and gave her a thumbs up.

"I just wish you could be in the pictures as well," Chip said, glancing around. "Do you think the PokeDex could take pictures even if you're not in it?"

"I think it can," Rotom said. "But who would take the picturezzz?"

"How about I take some pictures of the two of you together?" Lillie asked. She reached to hold Rotom.

"I'll keep it on the camera setting. Just don't change it, zzzt," Rotom said, then popped out of the PokeDex. True to word, the camera remained on even when Rotom wasn't occupying the machine. The ghost flitted over to where Chip stood and posed next to him, a wide grin on its face. It had never occurred to Rotom that Chip might want to document their adventure together, and if that was the case, he'd want pictures of them together, not just Chip and his other Pokemon. Things were so different now that Rotom was Chip's partner, and the ghost was finding it difficult to keep up, at least emotionally.

Lillie took a couple of shots, mimicking what Rotom had done by taking them from different angles and distances. She then moved closer to them, framing a perfect close-up shot. "Okay, make silly faces!" she said. Chip and Rotom both stuck their tongues out, and the girl laughed and took a photo. "Now pose, showing you two are the best partners ever."

Chip cupped Rotom and brought it close to his face, leaning his forehead against the ghost's. Rotom stared into Chip's amber eyes for a moment before it closed its eyes, and the boy did the same. Chip could hear Lillie's footsteps as she moved closer, then the sound of the camera shutter clicking. When Chip opened his eyes again, she was sitting next to him, holding the PokeDex out. "Rotom...could you show him the most recent picture? If... if you don't mind. I think you two are going to really like it."

"Zz-zzz!" Rotom dashed into the PokeDex.

The picture Lillie had taken showed on the screen. It was a close up from Chip's shoulders up, showing Rotom resting gently in his hands. The glow of Rotom's blue electric aura had washed over Chip's face as they had leaned their foreheads together, and there was the tiniest little smiles on each of their faces, ones they hadn't even been cognizant of.

Chip gazed at it and smiled. "I love it. Thank you, Lillie. What do you think, Roro?"

Rotom didn't know how to react to the photo. There was a warmth spreading through its body that sent its circuits alight with emotions, choking the ghost with their intensity. It was strange how a single photo could encompass so well all the feelings it had for Chip, but somehow Lillie had managed to shoot the perfect picture of their friendship. Rotom knew that it would cherish that picture forever.

"I think Roro's a bit tongue-tied," Chip said with a laugh. "Do you want any pictures with Cosmog, Lillie?"

"Ah…" Her brow furrowed. "I don't think it's safe to let it out… but… there's no one here in this square either, so… maybe…" She moved back over to her bag, then froze when she realized the zipper was open. Inside, there was nothing but the clothing she'd worn the night before. "Nebby! Nebby's missing!"

"What? What do you mean, it's missing?" Chip moved over, looking into the bag in disbelief. "Cosmog must've gone out into the tall grass…"

"Oh no," Lillie said, putting her hands to her face. Tears had formed in her eyes, and her white-blond hair fell over her face. "Nebby loves getting out of its bag, and it's always trying to meet other pokemon… I don't know what to do, I'm too scared to go through the tall grass and look… and there's no telling where Nebby might be!"

"I'll find it! Zzzt!" Rotom said, dashing into the tall grass.

"Wait here, okay? Just sit at the fountain, and we'll go find Nebby," Chip said, gently placing his hands on Lillie's shoulders to push her down toward the fountain's edge. She looked up at him with tear-filled eyes, then nodded, sitting down and clutching her bag tightly. Chip patted her shoulder, then turned and headed into the grass where Rotom had disappeared. "Roro! Slow down, I'm coming too!"

Stalks of grass slapped against Chip's face as he headed into the brush. He couldn't tell where Rotom was, but he could hear the faint crackling sounds of something moving through the grass, so he followed that, hoping it was Rotom. His heart pounded in his chest with every step, as he knew this was the home of wild pokemon, and that meant Cosmog could be in danger. A wild Pokemon could easily attack it.

The sound of a sharp caw caught Chip's attention, followed by a soft, whining cry—Cosmog! He recognized its voice instantly. Rotom burst out of the grass and darted beside him, halting by his shoulder. "Let's check over there. It sounded like Cosmog," he said, gesturing for Rotom to follow him. The ghost nodded and the two dashed in the direction of Cosmog's cry. The caws grew louder and more frequent—it sounded like bird pokemon, from what Chip could guess, and an awful lot of them.

Chip burst from the tall grass into a small field that ended at a grove of trees all packed tightly together. Cosmog was backed up against the trees, whining softly as it cowered. It squeaked it pain as a spearow darted at it, leaving a glowing white scratch on its body. Other spearow fluttered around the two, egging the aggressive one on with caws and squawks. Chip knew from living in Kanto that spearow flocked in big groups, and a flock of spearow could be very dangerous.

"Nebby!" Rotom called out. "We'll save you, don't worry! Zzz!"

Cosmog looked up at the sound of Rotom's voice and let out a cry for help. The spearow glanced over toward Chip and Rotom and started cawing and squawking even louder. Chip looked at Rotom, gritting his teeth. "What are they saying?"

"They're angry Cosmog entered their territory!" Rotom said with a squeak of alarm. "They're saying their leader izzz coming, and Cosmog isn't getting away without being punished for trespassing… oh! Oh no, Chip! Their leader izzz a fearow!"

Chip looked around frantically. There was no fearow in sight, not yet. They had to move fast. "We need to save Cosmog before the fearow gets here. Roro, use Thunder Shock, I think it'll scare them away. We can grab Cosmog and run back to Lillie, and if we're fast enough we can get indoors before the fearow comes! They're bird pokemon, so they're weak to electric. I think it'll work!"

"Okay!" Rotom said, landing in Chip's arms. The ghost then exited the PokeDex and darted forward, a burst of electricity slashing through the air toward the bird pokemon. One of them saw Rotom's attack coming and let out a caw of warning. A couple of the spearow scattered, taking off at the sound of the warning call, but three of them were hit with the electric blast. They crumpled to the ground, their wings fluttering weakly.

"Keep them busy!" Chip shouted as he dashed toward Cosmog. He scooped the shaking psychic cloud up in his arms; Cosmog let out a pitiful pew of desperation. But as Chip grabbed hold of Cosmog, the spearow seemed to forget the cloud pokemon was even there and turned their attention on Rotom with furious cawing. Rotom backed up, a nervous expression on its face.

The spearow hesitated for a moment—a heartbeat of terror pulsing through Chip at the abrupt silence—then a single angry caw sent them flocking toward Rotom. The ghost darted back into the tall grass with a high pitched trill of fear. Chip gasped when he realized Rotom had dashed away, but shot through the tall grass anyway. Brambles tore at his clothes and skin as he exploded out of the foliage, startling Lillie. She was still sitting at the fountain, wringing her hands in anxiety.

"Nebby!" Lillie exclaimed, rushing to take the psychic cloud in her arms. "I told you, stay in my bag! Oh god, Chip, thank you so much for finding it—"

"Hold that thought," Chip said. "Rotom's being attacked!"

He left Lillie clutching Cosmog he headed back into the tall grass. Warning bells went off in his head, as he'd been told from a very young age never to travel into the tall grass unless he had a Pokemon with him, but he knew he couldn't stand outside the grass and wait for Rotom to come back. The crackle of electricity alerted him to where Rotom was, and he found it surrounded by spearow in a small clearing.

Chip's eyes widened as he realized there were glowing scratches on Rotom where the spearows' claws and beaks had torn at its delicate plasma body. Rotom was darting around frantically, but spearow enclosed it from all sides. There were so many of them it didn't know where to go, and being attacked from all sides left it panicked and terrified.

"RORO!" Chip called out. Rotom turned toward him, its eyes wide and pleading. Chip pulled his backpack off his shoulder and held it on one hand, then swung it at the nearest spearow. The bird pokemon didn't see him coming, and as a result the backpack slammed into it, sending it ricocheting toward a tree with an undignified squawk. "Leave Rotom alone!" he snapped, swinging the backpack at another one.

The spearow descended on Chip in an instant.

Chip jumped back briefly as a spearow took a shot at his eyes with its sharp claws. He then dashed forward, ducking his head as he broke through the line of spearow. He pulled Rotom close to him, shielding its injured body, feeling its trembles mirroring his own. With the one free arm he had, he swung the backpack at the spearow, but they weren't deterred. He knew from studying that spearow were stubborn, and they were angrily tearing at him.

"Roro, Roro, focus. Thunder Shock, okay? Aim for them, I know you can do it." Chip's voice was tight with pain and he could feel blood trickling down his back.

Rotom's aura flared out in a swirl of blue, and a moment later a burst of electricity shot out from it. "Ro-to-TO!"

The electricity arced around both of them, then twisted in a spiral. Chip could feel warmth against his skin as Rotom's discharge of electricity heated up its plasma body. Chip still held onto it despite that, guarding it, refusing to let Rotom suffer another painful scratch or peck. He closed his eyes tightly against the flash of light resulting from Rotom's Thunder Shock, until he realized… silence. He couldn't hear squawking anymore.

He slowly opened his eyes to find the fainted bodies of spearows littered around him. "Roro, you did it!"

But just as soon as he'd spoke, a caw cut through the air—deeper, meaner than the call of a spearow. As Chip turned around, shaking from fear, a massive black shadow passed over him. The chill of fear froze him in place.

Above them was the fearow.

Rotom whimpered, its body shuddering. Chip looked down at it in alarm, then darted out of the clearing and through the tall grass. When he burst out the other side again, Lillie was still waiting by the fountain, clutching their bags in her arms. The black shadow passed over them again, followed by the bone-chilling cry of the fearow. Chip didn't have time to say anything, he just grabbed Lillie's hand and dashed across the cobblestone, desperately seeking the sanctuary of a building.

"What's going on—!" Lillie squeaked, stumbling after him. She looked up and spotted the massive brown body of the fearow. Its neck was curved down as the bird focused its gaze on the two. Its loud caw made her shriek. "It's chasing us!"

The bird's cry grew louder, and it dived down at them. The impact knocked Chip and Lillie to the ground, sending them sprawling in a cry of pain and fear. Lillie's bag bounced against the cobblestone, earning a startled squeak from Cosmog. Chip felt his shoulder slam into the ground, sending a wave of pain through him, but he refused to let go of Rotom. The injured ghost opened its eyes as the fearow hovered in front of them, screeching in anger, its wings beating the air hard and sending gusts of wind at the two. Then, Rotom wriggled free of Chip's grip, moving in front of him and placing itself between the furious bird and Chip.

"Roro! No, you can't fight that thing! It's too big!" Chip exclaimed, scrambling to get to his knees. He remembered learning about spearow in his classes back home in Kanto. A spearow had to train quite a long time to evolve into a fearow, which meant this bird was incredibly dangerous to the little ghost. He couldn't let Rotom risk this!

Rotom turned to look at him with an expression both serious and sad. Then, it turned back toward the fearow and launched a Thunder Wave attack.

"Roro! Come back!" Chip cried out.

"It's going to get hurt!" Lillie said, her eyes wide. She, too, seemed to know that Rotom stood no chance against a fearow. "We have to do something, Chip!"

The fearow flapped its wings heavily, sending a gust of wind that sent Rotom flying back a number of meters. The ghost struggled to fly through it, but even its high speed couldn't fight back against the power of the fearow's wings. The ghost moved in an arc, trying to find an opening, but every time the bird sent another powerful gust to knock it back. Rotom launched a Thunder Shock attack, but the distance caused the electricity to peter out, barely touching its target.

Then, before Rotom could react, the fearow shot into the sky. Rotom whirled around in surprise, then let out a squeak of alarm as the bird Pokemon bore down on it at breakneck speeds. It struck the little ghost with a Pursuit attack, the glow of dark energy surrounding it. The attack knocked Rotom to the ground, where it didn't move.

"Roro! No!" Chip shouted. The fearow was circling again, preparing itself for another Pursuit move. Chip dashed forward, even as Lillie yelped and tried to grab for him, and flung his body over the injured one of his partner. Every muscle strained with the knowledge that the powerful bird pokemon was coming straight for him. Those massive talons would shred him to pieces.

But it didn't matter. "Roro… I'll protect you. I promise!"

* * *

 **A/N: How are they going to get out of this one? Comment below and let me know what you think will happen!**


	8. Chapter 8: The Pokemon Center

**FEARFUL OF THE NIGHT**

By: Cy Mendoza

* * *

 **CHAPTER 8**

THE POKEMON CENTER

Rotom's eyes opened half-way, then its body began to glow a bright blue. The ghost let out a shriek of fury as it saw the fearow diving down toward its partner. The blue aura jumped in an arc around Chip's body, electricity slamming into the fearow as it got close to them. The bird let out an angry screech, pummeling its wings against the air as it rose back up. Rotom's electricity crackled around it, a dizzy look in the ghost's eyes. It'd taken all the energy Rotom had left to drive the fearow back in mid-dive, but it didn't even seem the bird was deterred. It circled them, eyes narrowed, waiting for the opportunity to dive again.

"Roto!" Rotom took in a sharp, struggling breath. Another arc of electricity exploded above them. "ROTO!"

Crack. Crack. _Crack_. Rotom kept sending up bursts of electricity, but they were petering out fast, each one weaker than the last. The fearow seemed to realize this, keeping its distance as it watched with keen eyes. Rotom would run out of energy soon. This was a guarantee.

"What's going on here?" a soft voice called out.

"Help them, please!" There was Lillie's voice now, filled with desperation. "Please, you have to help them!"

"Oh my, that's a big fearow… Smeargle, come! Let's chase this thing off!"

Chip forced his eyes open, seeing a strange-looking creature scrambling toward them. It was a very pale eggshell and brown color with a hat that looked remarkably like Rotom's head spike, and it clutched its tail in one hand as it scampered toward them. The strange Pokemon looked back at its owner for a moment, then launched an Ember attack with a swipe of its tail. The paintbrush-like tip burned for a second, then sent out a shower of of embers. The embers scattered through the sky, some of them impacting the fearow's feathers, sending them ablaze in a small flame. The bird flapped its wings with an angry caw, trying to scatter the embers.

"Excellent," called the trainer. "Water Gun, please!"

The burst of water struck the surprised fearow. It took off with a squawk of anger, feathers both burnt and drenched. The black shadow passed over Chip once more, then the sound of beating wings disappeared into the distance.

"Ah…there we go," said the trainer. Chip heard the sound of footsteps approaching him, one set slow, the other set hurried. He slowly uncurled from his protective cocoon around Rotom, holding the ghost carefully as he opened his eyes all the way. Lillie was dashing up to him, worry in her eyes, but approaching at a slower pace was a young man, tan-skinned and dressed in white and brown. His eyes were a calm green, the color of a field of grass, and his pale pink hair was styled to curl up away from his neck.

The smeargle scampered over to its trainer and looked up at him, letting out a little noise of happiness. The trainer stopped beside Chip, holding a hand out to him. "Greetings. I'm Captain Ilima. Are you alright?"

"I...I'm okay," Chip said breathlessly. He looked at Ilima's hand like it might bite him, then slowly placed his hand in the captain's. Ilima stood up, pulling Chip along with, and the blond stood up on shaky legs. Lillie rushed to his side, putting a hand on his shoulder as she looked over both him and Rotom.

Lillie sniffled. "But Rotom, i-it's…"

"Oh dear… your rotom looks very gravely injured, and you look like you're in need of medical attention as well," Ilima said, a slight frown on his face. "Please, let me show you to the pokemon center. Time is of the essence."

The cityscape blurred as Chip's sneakers slapped against the pavement. At one point, he'd passed up Ilima and Lillie, his gaze narrowed and focused on the pokemon center ahead. It felt like every set of eyes was on him, like every person who watched knew that he had an injured pokemon and was judging him somehow. Chip could barely focus as he exploded through the entrance of the pokemon center, taking the pink-haired woman behind the counter by surprise. She looked at him in alarm as he dashed up to the front desk. "I need your help—my rotom got ambushed by a bunch of spearows and a fearow!"

His two companions ran into the pokemon center just a couple seconds after Chip did. He glanced behind to see them, seeing the worry in their eyes, then turned back toward the nurse.

"Oh my goodness," the woman said. Her tag indicated her name was Joy. "Here, let me see it—poor thing, it's barely hanging on! What's wrong with you? You shouldn't let your pokemon battle until it gets into this state! You're lucky you got here in time, or this could have ended very badly!"

She placed a red spray bottle on the counter, and Chip immediately look it and began spraying down the electric pokemon. Rotom's aura sparked and hissed as it came into contact with the liquid, but slowly some of the scratches and bruises started to fade from its orange body. Its eyes opened all the way as it finally started floating on its own again. "Zzrt?"

"He wasn't battling with it, m'am," Lillie said, clutching her bag anxiously. The bag bobbed slightly from Cosmog's movements inside. "The spearows were attacking m-my pokemon, and he and his rotom helped us get away."

"I can confirm this," Ilima said, rubbing the back of his head. "That fearow was quite strong. He was running away from it, not trying to engage it in battle. His partner had no choice but to protect him when the fearow attacked."

Joy didn't look very convinced, but after a moment she sighed. "Very well, captain. Either way—" She looked at Chip. "—carry some potions on you at all times. You never know what could happen, or how far away the nearest pokemon center might be, and it's irresponsible to travel without them." She sighed. "Look, if you take the hallway to the right straight back, you'll come across the PokeMart. As for this little one, I think it would be best if we take it in for the night and make sure it's healed entirely. You can wait in the waiting room until it's ready the next morning."

"Zzrrr!" Rotom exclaimed, looking at Joy in alarm. It darted behind Chip and shook its head. "Ro-to, ro-ro!"

Joy looked at Rotom in concern. "If you don't want to, dear, then no one's going to make you. Please don't be scared, we're only looking out for your best interest."

"Are you okay?" Chip asked, holding his hands out to Rotom. The ghost pokemon slid into his palm and nodded. "You're sure you don't want the nurses to look at you?"

"Zz-zzz," Rotom said, shaking its head. "To-to-to."

"I apologize," Ilima said, approaching Chip. The blond looked at the other trainer in confusion. "I didn't realize that fearow was lingering so close to the city… as captain of this city's nearest trial, I should have known it was there and ensured it didn't attack the city-goers. You have my apologies for that…"

"It's not your fault," Chip murmured, then paused. "Wait, captain?"

"Yes—I apologize if I didn't introduce myself before. I'm Captain Ilima."

Chip frowned, trying to make sense of the vaguely familiar title, but Lillie seemed to read his mind. "Captains are the ones who control the island challenges on each of the islands. There's only one challenge on this island, s-so… this must be the captain that runs the Verdant Cavern…"

A small smile came to Ilima's face. "Yes, that would be my trial. I'm just glad to see both of you are okay. I think if you don't wish to have your rotom seen by the nurses here, you should at least rest before you do any more training. All pokemon centers have a communal quarters area where you can rest." He paused for a moment. "However, if you don't mind, I need to get back to work. I was supervising the Verdant Cavern when someone alerted me to the fearow's proximity. I'm glad I was able to assist."

"Thank you so much for helping us," Chip said, his mouth feeling dry. "I...I suppose I'll see you again when I challenge the Verdant Cavern trial?"

Ilima winked. "Yes, I do believe that would be the case. I will see you then. Please do have a good day, both of you."

"Goodbye, captain!" Lillie said. Soon as Ilima had stepped out, she turned toward Chip. "I think he's right… we should rest here until you're sure Rotom is better. We can get some supplies, then spend a couple hours here… that should be what Rotom needs to get its strength back."

Chip felt a sinking sensation in his stomach. If they stayed here a couple hours, there was a good chance he'd have to train Rotom in the dark. It already made him feel ill to think about the night, and sunlight was streaming in through the windows! Still, he couldn't deny anything that ensured Rotom's safety and health. He nodded, rubbing his face a little with one hand while Rotom rested in the other. Besides, nothing said he necessarily _had_ to train tonight. Maybe they could do something else. Yes-that seemed reasonable, and with Lillie with him, it made even more sense. Lillie didn't like battling, so she wouldn't want to train with him.

"Are you sure you're feeling okay?" he asked Rotom.

"Ro-ro, ro-to!" Rotom said, darting in a circle around Chip. It landed back in his hand a moment later and flashed him a wide grin. It took Chip a moment of wondering why Rotom was in such a good mood before he realized that it must have grown stronger fighting all the spearows, even despite being beaten up by that fearow. After all, Rotom had unleashed a Thunder Shock attack much larger than it had ever done before, and seemed to be sustaining its electricity longer too.

"Pew!" called out a soft voice. Chip turned to see Cosmog was drifting behind Lillie.

"Wh— Nebby! Please, stay in the bag! That's what started all of this!" Lillie looked around rapidly, then opened the bag. Cosmog whined, then complied, slipping back into the bag. Lillie zipped it up and let out a heavy sigh. "It's so excited to see everything and meet people… oh, Chip, I'm so sorry all of this happened. It's all my fault for not keeping an eye on Nebby."

"It's okay. Rotom seems to be all right… and that's all that matters to me. Let's go to the PokeMart, alright? I need to stock up on potions, like Joy said… and PokeBalls too, for that matter."

"What about your injuries?" Lillie asked, frowning.

"Umm, I'll worry about that after I get some supplies," Chip said uncertainly. "We're going to be here for a couple of hours, so… there's plenty of time to worry about that then." He tapped Rotom's cheek gently. "You heard the nurse, you need to get some rest. How about you sleep in the PokeDex?" He dropped his backpack and pulled the PokeDex out. Rotom blinked hazily, then darted into the machine.

"Your rotom lives in your PokeDex?" Joy asked, looking at Chip strangely. She had been watching their interaction curiously, as if she wanted to know just what kind of trainer Chip was, and how he treated his pokemon—she surely hadn't gotten a good impression so far, not from how injured Rotom had been. But now she knew he had something to do with Kukui, as he had been talking about a PokeDex with a pokemon inside of it, though she hadn't remembered which one it was until now. "You received that from Professor Kukui, right?"

Chip looked up. He hadn't realized Joy was paying attention to his conversation. "It's a long story, but yeah. Rotom is my partner… and it's my PokeDex… pretty great partner I have, huh?" He smiled, then grinned at Rotom, causing the electric pokemon to blush. "It can talk too. Hey, Roro, why don't you say hello to Joy?"

Rotom popped the appendages out of the PokeDex then floated over toward her. She watched it with unrestrained interest, smiling when Rotom floated in front of her face. "Hello, Nurse Joy. I'm the Rotom PokeDex, zzz-zzz. Chip callzzz me Roro."

"A Pokemon that talks!" Joy gasped. "I didn't know such a thing existed."

"I normally wouldn't be able to communicate with humanzzz, but I can use the PokeDex's audio system to broadcast my thoughts into the desired language." Rotom bobbed a little in the air with a grin. "It'zzz nice to meet you."

"I cannot believe that… my goodness, you would be so useful if you worked here!" Joy said. Rotom tilted slightly in curiosity. "You could tell us exactly what the pokemon are saying when they come in. Being able to hear the symptoms from the pokemon themselves would cut out so much extra work. Oh, but I know you're his partner, dear—please don't feel like I'm trying to recruit you seriously."

Rotom blushed some more. "I'd be happy to help, if Chip doesn't mind, zzt."

"Nice to see you're finding yourself a part time job. At least one of us will finally make some money," Chip said with a laugh. He pulled the blanket out of his bag and slowly wrapped Rotom in it, then pulled the ghost out of the air and into his arms. Rotom squirmed a little, then popped its arms back into its casing as it leaned back against Chip, looking up at him.

Joy tapped her fingers against the counter in thought as she watched the way Rotom looked at its partner. Maybe she had been too quick to judge Chip. Sure, there were instances when a pokemon clearly loved its trainer more than the reverse, but this didn't seem to be one of those situations. Chip and Rotom must have truly been unlucky, and their misfortune wasn't due to negligence on Chip's part.

"...Zzrrrr.. I'm only a little tired…" Rotom said with a yawn. "Besidezzz, I'd love to help. Imagine how many pokemon we could meet if I helped in a pokemon center…"

'We'll meet a lot on our journey too, Roro," Chip said, nestling the ghost into his backpack. "I'll leave my backpack open, all right? Now go on, sleep. You need to."

"Zzr…" Rotom nuzzled into the blanket and closed its eyes.

Chip looked up to see that Lillie was watching him. "Hm?"

"You're just so sweet with your rotom," she said quietly. "It surprises me every time… you're so different than the other trainers. They're so focused on winning and success that they sacrifice their pokemon's health for it."

"Roro means so much more to me than winning or success," Chip said, gesturing for Lillie to follow him in the direction of the PokeMart. "I just wish I could protect Roro from harm, from pain… but there's nothing I can do. It gets hurt every time it protects me..."

"Rotom put itself in danger to keep you safe," Lillie said quietly. "That was Rotom's choice. You can't beat yourself up for that."

The two of them walked side-by-side down the hallway connecting the pokemon center to the mart. Chip could hear voices up ahead; it appeared that a number of trainers crowded the shop to purchase supplies. Some of the shelves were barer than they should have been, but Chip could still see an abundance of potions, which relaxed him. He'd get everything he needed to make sure that Rotom trained safely and comfortably.

"I'm just lucky Ilima was there," Chip said. "I couldn't have gotten Rotom out of that situation myself."

That scared him, too. There wouldn't always be a friendly face nearby, ready to jump in and solve all his problems. He was in a big urban city right now, but when he and Rotom traveled into the rural areas of Alola, there would be no one to depend on but each other.

"Ah… speaking of seeing Ilima, I was thinking about the Verdant Cavern earlier," Lillie said. "While I'm not Ilima, I can tell you… I think your rotom will do well against the first challenge. It's a normal-type challenge, and Rotom is a ghost-type, right? Which means that any normal-type moves can't affect it… it makes me feel better knowing that sweet little rotom can't be harmed by those tough pokemon in the Verdant Cavern."

"Really?" Chip said, his eyes widening. That was excellent news! He had worried a lot about whether he and Rotom were strong enough to face an island challenge, but this gave him a renewed sense of confidence. Rotom still needed training, but with this type advantage, he could at least be confident that Rotom could stand a chance. "I think I'll tell it that when it wakes up. Roro can be… um… pretty anxious about battles."

Lillie let out a soft laugh. "I don't blame it, battles are terrible."

The two chatted idly as they waited in line for the mart. There were three trainers ahead of them, and as one trainer argued with the cashier over discounts, Chip felt his discomfort and pain compounding on itself. The scratches he'd gotten from the spearow were itching and burning at the same time, making it hard to concentrate. Lillie had to nudge him when it was his turn to go up to the cashier, and Chip jolted in surprise. "Mm! Sorry!"

The blond trotted up to the cashier and carefully gave his list. Chip wanted ten potions and ten PokeBalls for his bag, that was for sure. He also wanted medicine to aid in curing illnesses. Rotom was electric, he knew, which meant that he probably didn't have to worry about it ever getting paralysis, but the other illnesses were fair game. It was probably best practice to get paralysis healing medicine too, in case he got other pokemon.

As Lillie purchased her items and quietly spoke with the cashier, Chip sat down near the entrance and stared at the items in his arms, and then at his backpack. He reached in and carefully picked up Rotom, holding the electric pokemon against his chest as he started putting the items inside. Rotom shifted a bit in its sleep but didn't wake.

"I think I have everything I need," Lillie said, coming back up to Chip. "Do you think we can get supplies for your injuries here? Or maybe back up front, from Joy?"

"I think you get them from Joy, since she runs the hospital," Chip said. When he stood up and slung his backpack carefully over his shoulder, it still sent a wave of pain through him that made him wince. Lillie looked at him in concern, then gently guided him back toward the front of the pokemon center.

Chip wondered if other pokemon trainers got injured like this. They all made it seem so easy, but it seemed like more often than not something was attacking him as often as it was attacking Rotom. Maybe as Rotom got stronger, that wouldn't be the case. He could only hope. His whole body felt battered, and it had only been two days since he'd become a trainer.

Lillie headed up to the counter. Joy glanced up at her from some papers she was working on. "Um… miss? Do you have any first aid supplies…?"

Joy gave her a soft smile. "We have some bandages, as well as some anti-bacterial lotions to ward off infection. Here, let me get you one of the trainer first aid packs. You'd be surprised how many trainers think their journey won't result in their injury as well as their pokemon's. Fortunately, we always have first aid packs at pokemon centers!"

She handed over a plastic package that was about six inches by six inches. Lillie thanked the nurse then headed back over to where Chip was. "Let's go to the resting area. I think that'll be easiest," she said, gesturing for Chip to follow her as they moved down the hallway again. The first archway they passed said 'Lodging' over it. Inside, numerous bunk beds lined the floor. In the back right corner, there were bathroom facilities that displayed a toilet as well as a shower symbol, divided by gender. A large flat-screen television hung on the wall, showing the news from around Hau'Oli City. A little station off to the side had a coffee maker, as well as some non-perishable snacks for trainers to munch on, then beneath it, a shelf where maps had been stacked. The pokemon center really did have everything a trainer could want for their journey.

Lillie stopped at the first bunk bed that was unoccupied on both the top and the bottom, then plopped down on the bottom bunk and started opening the plastic package. Chip sat down beside her, wincing, and set his backpack carefully on the bed. After checking to make sure that Rotom hadn't woken up, he slipped his shirt off and tried looking over his shoulder.

"Oh Chip, you have so many scratches," Lillie said, pulling out some sanitized wipes. "Um, these might sting, but it'll make sure they don't get infected… okay?" Chip nodded, then winced, clenching his fists when Lillie cleaned up the scratches. He could only imagine where those spearows' claws had been, so this was definitely worth the sting. "Okay… now the bandages. Lift your arms, please?"

It took them only a couple more minutes before Chip's injuries were addressed. He sighed and lay down on the bed beside his backpack. The television on the back wall caught his attention. It was playing a story about Ilima chasing off an aggressive fearow from the city borders. "Thanks, Lillie."

"It's no problem," she said with a small smile. She followed his gaze for a moment, then bit her bottom lip. "Do you want me to stay with you until Rotom's healthy again?"

Chip rolled onto his side and looked at her. "Were you thinking of going back?"

"Ah...yes. I can't leave the professor alone for too long… or he might forget to eat, or the place will be a disaster after he does some attack move research… so I think I should go back there and make sure his lab is still standing… that's what a good research assistant does, right?"

"I'll be okay. I'll probably take a nap while Rotom's sleeping. If you need to get back, then that's fine."

Chip felt a little twinge of sadness. He'd liked Lillie—she was quiet but pleasant company. Nonetheless, he knew from his studies in Kanto that an adventure like the island challenge could only be done alone. Or not alone, really. Trainers always had the company of their pokemon. If he thought about it, forging that deep, trusting bond with Rotom sounded very nice.

"You're sure? I can go back after you're done resting," Lillie said uncertainly.

"I wouldn't want to keep you from your job, especially if I'm just going to be sleeping," Chip said. "For now, I guess this is goodbye… until we meet up again."

* * *

 **A/N: Are there any particular characters you'd like to see featured in this story? Any scenes you'd enjoy reading? Comment below!**


	9. Chapter 9: Family

**FEARFUL OF THE NIGHT**

By: Cy Mendoza

* * *

 **CHAPTER 9**

FAMILY

Chip hit the ground in surprise, turning to face the giant fearow bearing down on him. There was no one around, not even Lillie—where had she gone? He closed his eyes tightly as those giant claws reached out and—

"Chip!"

The blond opened his eyes at the sound of the voice. It was Rotom, his mind realized at once, even before he saw the ghost shaking his arm. He was sweating, and the thin sheets of the pokemon center's bed stuck to his skin uncomfortably. Dim light flowed through the window nearest to him. He hadn't remembered that Lillie chose a bunk bed closest to the window. As he sat up, still panting, he glanced out it to realize that the sun was going down. That sick feeling was spreading faster through him, even though he was awash in the artificial light of the pokemon center. He didn't even notice that Rotom was still nudging him until it moved right in front of his face and pushed at his cheek.

"Chip, are you alright? I think you were having a bad dream… zzt…" Rotom looked at him in concern.

The blond took a moment to catch his breath. "It was just a dream. I'm fine." He took the ghost in his arms and lay back against the pillows again, holding onto Rotom tightly. Rotom shifted slightly in his grip to look at him. Chip buried his face against his partner and breathed softly, his breath forming condensation on the screen.

"How are you feeling?" Chip murmured, pulling his face away to look at Rotom. "Here, let me see your regular form."

"I'm doing fine! Zz-zz!" The ghost exited the PokeDex, and Chip set it aside. True to Rotom's words, it looked healthy. Whatever bruises had been on its body seemed to have faded away.

"Oh, you look fantastic, don't you?" Chip said with a soft laugh.

"Ro-to!" The ghost leaned to one side, looking at him curiously. "Zz-zz…"

"What's wrong?" Chip asked. "I'm fine, it was just a dream, Roro."

Rotom blinked at him, leaning the other way. Chip could almost feel the word implied from the ghost's expression— _promise?_

"Yes, I promise," he said, reaching to cup his partner in his hands. He nuzzled his nose against the ghost's cheek, pleased that the only sensation that came to his skin was a light tingling.

"Kzzzrt!" Rotom squeaked and giggled, an excited smile plastered to its face. It then wriggled out of his hands and darted around his head with little chirps. Chip laughed, much more authentically this time, twisting this way and that to follow Rotom's movements. Finally, he held his hand out, and the ghost immediately settled into his hand, its electric wings twitching back and forth.

"You're in such a good mood. Did you sleep well?"

"Ro, ro-to, ro-to-to," was the answer, followed by a vigorous nod. Chip patted Rotom's head spike again, then stretched and pulled the covers off himself. Rotom floated around him in a circle, then darted over to the window to look out.

Chip looked too. Based on the setting sun, he assumed he must have slept four or five hours. To be honest, he'd been feeling exhausted from his compounding wounds, so maybe it was best for the both of them that they'd taken such a long rest. He just wished that the night hadn't come so fast. Chip's heartbeat had finally calmed down when he realized he was safe in the pokemon center, and there wasn't a real fearow about to rip him to shreds, but anxiety still prickled at the back of his mind.

The night had come.

"Ugh," Chip said, looking down at himself. He'd sweated enough that he felt a shower was mandatory at this point, but he wasn't sure how to go about doing that in a communal place like the pokemon center. He still had the new shirt he'd gotten from the clothing store, so he could wear that. Would he leave his bag with Rotom? He didn't want anything to get stolen. "Hey, Roro?"

"Zzt?" the ghost turned and looked at him.

"Do you think you could guard my backpack here? I want to go take a shower, but obviously I don't want anyone walking off with my stuff."

"Zz-zzz!" Rotom said. The ghost hovered over Chip's backpack, its electric aura starting to build up and spark. Chip chuckled at the sight. Clearly his partner was willing to give a nasty shock to anyone who dared to try pilfering something from him.

Chip grabbed his overnight bag from his backpack, then the plastic bag that held the new shirt in it. "Keep an eye on everything, okay? Don't let anything distract you."

"Zzt!" Rotom waved one electric wing in salute.

Chip wasn't sure what to expect of a communal shower. He feared it might be something where everyone showered in one spot, sort of like a gym shower, but he was pleased to see there were stalls for showering. Exhaling softly, he claimed one of them and closed the door behind him. In the stall, there was a cube shower—no tub—and a space to put clothing and other belongings. He was almost tempted to go back and get his stuff to put it on the little counter, but he also wasn't sure he wanted Rotom in here with him. An electric pokemon plus water seemed like a bad combination.

The hot water refreshed him and soothed some of the ache in his body. When he'd changed clothes and came out of the bathroom, the lodging space was eerily silent.

"Roro?" Chip called out, walking in the direction of his bunk bed. His backpack still sat, untouched, on the bed, so no one had robbed him. He put his dirty clothes into it then zipped it up. The PokeDex was still inside too. He picked it up and frowned at its emptiness, then tucked it under his arm. Where had Rotom gone?

"Roooo-to!"

Relief hit Chip like a train. That was definitely Rotom, but where was it?

Chip looked around until he realized with a start that the television on the back wall had eyes. Rotom giggled and popped out of the television, then moved over to the coffee maker and possessed that next. Chip smiled, slinging his backpack over his shoulder, and moved over to the coffee maker. Rotom popped the top of the coffee maker open as Chip placed the coffee grinds inside, then filled the machine with water. He found a cup and set it under, then closed the top of the coffee maker and plopped into the chair beside it.

Rotom trilled quietly as it prepared the coffee. Chip gave it a light pat on the head, then closed his eyes with a sigh. He needed to get over this fear of the night. It was stupid, and he'd never felt this way about the darkness before, it was just because of those jerks from Team Skull that he had this sudden fit of anxiety. He hoped that the coffee would wire him up enough to keep the anxiety away, and he could finally get to training Rotom. Ilima had seemed excited—well, sort of—for him to challenge his trial, and he didn't want to let Ilima down. He kind of liked the captain, maybe because he'd saved Chip from that fearow.

"Ro-to," called out Rotom. Chip looked over to see that the coffee was ready. Rotom popped out of the coffee maker and settled on Chip's shoulder as the boy filled the cup with creamer and sugar, then took a sip.

"Tastes pretty good! You're super useful, you know that?" He reached up to pat Rotom's head with his free hand, then laughed when he noticed how intently the ghost was looking at the coffee. "Do you want some?"

"Ro-ro," the ghost said, nodding.

"You sure that's a good idea?" Chip asked. "Have you ever had coffee before? Did Professor Oak ever give it to you?"

"Ro-to!" Rotom said, nodding, though that was a lie. Oak had never given it coffee, but it badly wanted to try it! The professor had a cup every morning, so how bad could it be? And now Chip was drinking it, and… well, Rotom was curious.

Chip filled the creamer cup with some of the coffee then held it out to Rotom. The ghost picked it up with its electric limbs, then sipped it down in one or two gulps. Chip moved back over to the window and noticed the malasada shop's bright neon lettering against the growing darkness, which reminded him of how hungry he was. "I bet you're hungry, huh? I'm hungry too… should we go get malasada before we leave?"

Rotom was vibrating a little. "Ro-to!"

Chip looked at the ghost in alarm. "You're not going to explode now that you've had coffee, are you? You're not a Voltorb."

"Ro-to, ro-to, ro-to…" The vibrating grew more intense.

"Roro, you look like you're going to self-destruct!"

"Ro… ro… ROTOOOOO!" The ghost blasted off from Chip's shoulder. The electric pokemon squealed in delight and ricocheted around the room, bouncing off any surface it could. It hit the television, possessed it, then popped back out again, darting off toward the ceiling, where it found a ceiling light and possessed that. Chip counted the number of objects that Rotom possessed while it bounced around from the coffee—the overhead lights twice, the television three times, the fire alarm (and thankfully didn't set it off), the air conditioner, the thermostat, the coffee maker, until finally the ghost pokemon rolled out of the coffee maker and slammed into the PokeDex.

Chip finished off the coffee with a laugh then tossed the empty cup into the garbage pail. "Remind me never to give you coffee again."

The PokeDex powered up, and a moment later Rotom's appendages popped out and it wiggled out from under Chip's arm, circling him rapidly. "I feel wonderful! Thizzz is great!"

"Glad to hear it," Chip said, chuckling. He wished coffee worked that fast for _him!_ "Hey, Roro, I was thinking… remember when you said that you can call people from the pokemon center?"

Rotom nodded rapidly, then seemed to realize where Chip was going with his statement, letting out a squeak of delight. "Are we going to call the profezzzor?"

"I promised I'd call him when I got my partner…" Chip could feel a spark of pain. Though he'd gotten used to telling the story of his loss, it still hurt to know he'd have to tell it again. Oak would be just as disappointed, no doubt, as Kukui had been. Chip almost didn't want to give Oak the bad news, but keeping it from him felt wrong too. "I can't put it off forever."

Rotom nodded, frowning. "Do you not want to tell him what happened? Zzzr?"

"I just… don't want to tell it again." Rotom was about to open its mouth when Chip shook his head. "I know you'd do it for me, Roro. But it's something I have to do, even if I don't want to. You could help me make the call though, right?"

"Of course!" Rotom gestured with one of its arms for Chip to follow him, then floated out of the lodging room of the pokemon center.

Chip followed his partner wordlessly through the hallway until they reached the front of the pokemon center. He didn't see Joy anywhere, which was odd, but he figured she might have been in the back. He could hear rustling happening in the hospital, as well as quiet voices. A quiet 'zzt' caught his attention as he looked up, realizing Rotom was waiting by the computer for him. Chip hadn't realized he'd stopped in the middle of the hallway.

Rotom placed an arm against the screen. "Dialing…"

The professor's picture filled the computer's screen. He looked a bit singed, as if something had shocked or burned him. That wasn't unusual, as the professor interacted with a lot of pokemon each day, but it still made Chip wince slightly. "Oh, Chip! How nice to hear from you again. I was wondering when you'd get around to calling me—I'm sure you're quite busy on your journey, aren't you? How has it gone for you? Is Rotom still with you?"

Rotom floated into view of the camera and waved at the professor. "Oh, profezzzor, are you okay? Zzr?"

"I'm quite all right, don't worry about me, Rotom. Chip? Are you alright? You look a bit tired, have you been getting enough sleep?"

Chip was building himself up to explaining his situation again, and it left his mouth dry. The professor's jovial smile had turned downwards in a frown of concern. "Something happened, professor… something bad." The story poured out of him easier this time, despite the ache in his stomach from telling it. Rotom had a light frown on its face, patting the boy's shoulder gently in hopes that it could comfort him.

"Chip, I'm so sorry that happened to you," Oak said. "This Team Skull is sounding a lot like Team Rocket." The moment the words slipped out of the professor's mouth, he started, and waved a hand. "But nevermind that, Chip—so you say Rotom's your partner now? Hmm, but I never trained it for battle?"

"Roro's doing a good job learning," Chip said, managing a little smile. But then he blinked and stared at the screen. "Wait, professor…"

"Hm?"

Something had flitted into the picture. Behind the professor was a small orange orb with blue eyes, looking between the professor and the screen on the other side. Rotom's eyes rounded out, though it didn't say anything.

"Oh," the professor said, looking behind him. "This is your sire, Rotom—ahem, you're blocking the camera—" The other rotom had moved right in front of the camera, eyeing it curiously. The professor waved the ghost away from the camera, and it shocked him with a laugh before flitting off screen. The professor stiffened, then smoothed down his hair. "My apologies, my own rotom can be a bit mischievous. I certainly hope yours didn't inherit that—Rotom, you're not shocking Chip for fun, are you?"

"Absolutely not!" Rotom said, its eyes still wide.

"Good. Chip… Rotom will be a good partner for you. It may be a challenge to train it, as I didn't breed it for battle, but the two of you will grow from the difficulties. If you need anything, please feel free to ask. I'm only one call away, and I'd be happy to send you anything you need by pigeot."

"I think I'm okay, but thank you, professor." Chip closed his eyes briefly, before exhaling. "And… thank you… for Rotom. I don't know what I would have done without it."

A sad smile appeared on the professor's face. "I managed to give you your pokemon partner after all, it seems."

Chip and Oak discussed the island challenge and trials while Rotom floated off to the side a little bit, lost in thought. It seemed foolish, but Rotom had felt something when it saw that other rotom—an inexplicable, intense emotion that sent its circuits tingling. That feeling still hadn't gone away. It was remarkably similar to the feelings it had for Chip. _My family,_ Rotom thought. _I have a family...?_

It seemed like such a stupid thing to say. Of course Rotom had a family—where else would it have come from? It wasn't like Rotom could appear from nowhere. It still had memories of its hatching, pushing at its egg until the shell finally cracked, and the tiny ghost tumbled out. But the truth was, Rotom had never seen another of its own kind until now. _I have a family…will I ever get to meet Professor Oak's rotom? I wouldn't even know what to say to it! It didn't even acknowledge me... oh, why would it? A lot of rotom were born in that lab, what makes me special?_

Rotom didn't realize Chip was done talking to the professor until the boy poked its screen. "Zzr?"

"Um…" Chip looked at Rotom. "So what did you think of that other rotom?"

Rotom glanced off to the side. "I don't know."

Chip waited to see if Rotom would say anything else. After all, it'd met its sire—in a way, at least, it wasn't like the other rotom had said anything. But when Rotom didn't continue, Chip realized the ghost didn't want to talk about it… at least not now. He hesitated, trying to think of something else for them to talk about, when his stomach grumbled and gave him the perfect topic. "Do you want to get some malasada? Or maybe you'd like to start training? Should we train and then eat, or eat and then train?"

For the first time, when Rotom thought about battling, it didn't feel a sick sense of fear. It was actually a little excited, maybe because of the coffee, or maybe because it wanted something else to focus on besides the other rotom. The ghost put on a smiling face, a little forced, but hopefully that wasn't noticeable. "I wouldn't mind burning some of this energy, zzz!"

Seeing the change in its demeanor uplifted Chip. "Then let's see what we can find, huh? Oh, I forgot to ask—did you get stronger after you fought those spearow?"

"Zz-zzz? I think so." Rotom felt a surge of happiness, knowing that it wasn't as weak as it used to be. The proof was in the fact that it could control its electricity so much better now. It may not have been bred to battle, but it wanted so badly to show Chip that it could still do so and win, that it could protect him. It had a feeling that familiar fear would come back when it faced a tough battle, but for now, Rotom was grateful for the confidence. Rotom didn't _like_ feeling anxious and worried, so any opportunity it had to avoid that, it welcomed.

"Then that's great! I bet you'll have no trouble with the wild pokemon around here then. You've gotten strong enough that you should be able to handle anything without trouble."

"Zzzr… If you say so, Chip," Rotom said, smiling.

The two left the pokemon center to a warm Alola evening. Though Chip initially felt anxious about stepping outside, he could see that the sun was still in the process of setting, and there was a lot of natural light. Coupled with the fact that the city had a ton of unnatural light, it seemed almost like it was daytime. That comforted Chip, and as he looked over at Rotom, he noticed it was watching him carefully, as if looking for any signs that he might be uncomfortable.

People smiled as they passed the pair, waving at them. It caught Chip by surprise—in the big cities in Kanto, that was never heard of, people waving at each other despite being strangers—but he quickly adapted and waved back with a smile. People here were so friendly it still startled him, but at the same time he loved it. This place was starting to feel more like home.

"Hau'oli City has a lot of wild grassland areazzz even inside the city," Rotom said. "If you take a right here, there should be some grass contained by fences on your left, zzz."

Chip had intended to follow Rotom's directions, but a grove of trees just outside the city's borders caught his attention and he headed in that way instead. Rotom made a quiet 'zzr' noise of confusion, then followed its trainer. A thicket lay past the edge of the grove of trees, and the forest was darker back there. A small road ran parallel to the forest, and light from a tall street light streaked through the tree leaves, dappling the ground with pale yellow. The boy stepped into the forest, Rotom by his side, and glanced around.

"It'zz… it'zzz a bit dark," Rotom said, watching Chip. "Are you sure you're okay with thizzz place?"

"There's a street light on the other side of the trees," Chip said. He took a deep breath. His anxiety, at least right now, was manageable. Maybe it was a sign he was getting better? Besides, he was so close to the city—what could happen? "It's not that bad. I'll stay within the range of the light. It's fine."

The two picked their way through the vegetation, then paused and looked around. It was so quiet, so serene. Above, the sky was streaked with bright pinks and golds. It was beautiful, and he found he was staring up at his favorite color—the gold even leaked into the forest itself, making the trees and their leaves aglow with it. It was just a shame that he could only see a golden sky before night fell. Maybe he could train Rotom a little during the sunset, and run back toward the city for malasada when the _real_ night came.

"What are you thinking? Zzz?" Rotom asked, still watching him carefully.

"Um… just thinking about the sunset… there must be a lot of wild pokemon in here, don't you think?" Chip asked, picking his way through the thick of the vegetation. He expected to see bird pokemon in the trees and bug pokemon on the forest floor, but he didn't see anything. The place that'd seemed so serene just moments ago was now starting to feel very eerie.

"There'zzz a 90% chance of encountering a wild pokemon in this forest," Rotom said. Its excitement from the coffee was starting to die down as warning bells went off in its head. Something about this forest didn't seem right. Rotom couldn't figure out what was putting it on edge, but _something_ was. "Chip, maybe we should go back to the city and search the grasslandzzz there…"

"Maybe you're right. Something about this place feels weird," Chip said, turning around to head back, but then he froze. Something stood behind them.

It was small, maybe about two feet tall, and looked like a doll. The creature lifted its head, stained with two red circles and tiny black eyes, and made a faint hissing sound. The forest seemed to grow darker. The street light flickered on and off. Chip stared at the creature as his heart threatened to pound out of his chest.

"It's a mimikyu!" Rotom said abruptly. "Chip, we need to escape, it'zzz too strong!"

* * *

 **A/N: Stay tuned for the next chapter, which will introduce Mimikyu!**


	10. Chapter 10: Mimikyu

**FEARFUL OF THE NIGHT**

By: Cy Mendoza

* * *

 **CHAPTER 10**

MIMIKYU

Before Rotom was even through with speaking, two shadow arms slipped out from beneath the mimikyu's costume and shot at Rotom. The shadow arms twisted around the smaller ghost and threw it into the grass as Chip screamed in surprise. Rotom popped out of the PokeDex with a panicked squeak, but the mimikyu just grabbed it again and slammed it into the ground with a growl.

Before Chip could even say anything, Rotom popped out of the grass and launched a Thunder Shock attack. The mimikyu flinched, then smacked Rotom into a tree with one of its shadow arms. Its eyes glinted malevolently, then it turned to look at Chip.

"Roro!" Chip dashed toward the tree, reaching for the ghost. Rotom floated back up before he could reach it, looking at him desperately for a plan. Chip's mind went blank. It was too dark. He couldn't focus! "Oh, god… Roro, I don't know what to do!"

Chip was struggling to think. The street light flickered off again, drenching the forest in darkness. His muscles tensed to the point where he felt he couldn't move. How could he have been so stupid? How could he have gone out into the night, knowing what awaited him out there? The night brought only darkness and pain!

"Ro-to!" Rotom shouted, dragging Chip out of his fear-stricken state. With its cry, the street light flickered back on, washing them in yellow light.

Chip took a deep breath. He couldn't do this to Rotom; he couldn't leave it alone as he drowned in his terror. As much as it was difficult to force himself to function, he had to for Rotom's sake. It'd done that for him so many times before. "I-It's ghost-type, isn't it? Use Astonish, that'll deal double damage to it!"

Rotom's blue aura surged to life as it let out a loud cry, slamming into the other ghost pokemon. The mimikyu only scooted back a little from the impact, swatting the smaller ghost away with one of its shadow limbs like Rotom was nothing. It growled a response, then its eyes glinted again and it created a swirling mass of purple energy in front of it.

"Roro! Watch out, you have to dodge that!" Chip called out, clenching his fists. Rotom chirped a response, dashing to the left as the shadow ball whirled past it at breakneck speed. The attack hit a tree behind Rotom and exploded into a burst of energy, causing the tree to fell. The gravity of the situation sharpened Chip's senses. He couldn't freak out when Rotom was facing such a dangerous opponent! "Good job! Keep your attention on it and dodge whenever it tries to attack you!"

Rotom faced the mimikyu, repeating Chip's words in its mind. Keep an eye on it, and dodge whenever it was about to launch an attack. The mimikyu was easily double its strength, and that left Rotom with a sick, anxious feeling in its stomach. But it had to push that terror away, as the mimikyu wasn't letting them get away, and Rotom couldn't let it hurt Chip. Chip was so scared, the night was pressing down on them both, and Rotom wouldn't let Chip get hurt again. The mimikyu's shadow claws slid out of its pikachu costume again, and Rotom darted back, then shot to the right as the shadow claw sliced past it.

"Thunder Wave!" Chip shouted. "Paralyze it!"

"Ro-to!" A burst of electricity shot out of Rotom and slammed into the other ghost. The mimikyu shuddered, its head lowering a little, then it snarled, followed by a number of growls and snarls. Chip stared at it; it wasn't attacking, it seemed to be _talking_ to Rotom.

Rotom's expression was one of fear and confusion as it backed away from the mimikyu. The electric ghost jittered in place, then shot around anxiously as another shadow claw sliced through the air toward it. Chip noticed, though, that the mimikyu's claws were moving slower than they had been before. The paralysis had set in, and it was struggling to move.

"There!" Chip called out. "Look, it's getting slower! You can do this, Roro!"

Rotom looked back at Chip, then let out a sigh of relief when it realized Chip was right—the mimikyu was slower now. The confidence it'd experienced before was starting to come back now that it had the mimikyu subdued, and it waited for Chip's next instruction.

The street light flickered off again. Chip put his hands to his face, breathing hard. _Get it together! It's just darkness! Roro's going to get hurt if you don't focus!_ When he moved his hands, the street light had come back on again. He'd never felt so grateful for gloomy yellow light than now. "Keep it paralyzed by using Thunder Shock," Chip shouted. "The more times you zap it, the more its body is going to struggle with moving."

"Ro-ro!" This plan sounded logical to Rotom, so it darted to the left and zapped the mimikyu again. It let out a snarling cry, turning toward the ghost pokemon, but Rotom darted around it toward the right, then shocked it again. The mimikyu created a shadow ball in front of it, but every time it tried to face the electric ghost, Rotom had already darted off out of its vision, launching another Thunder Shock attack.

The mimikyu let out a frustrated cry, turning toward Chip. A second later, it shot the Shadow Ball attack at him. The attack came so fast that Chip didn't have a moment to react, but Rotom did. It dashed in front of its partner, taking the full blast head-on. The attack exploded as it struck Rotom, sending it flying into Chip, and Chip stumbled back onto the ground. With a shriek of worry, Chip sat up, looking at Rotom's badly injured body. It was covered in blackish-purple bruises, and was shuddering from pain.

The mimikyu crept forward, its shadow claw coming out from under its cloth again, ready to deliver the final blow.

Chip gritted his teeth as he grabbed one of the potions from his backpack and sprayed it on Rotom. Some of the bruises disappeared from Rotom's body, but most of them remained. The electric ghost's eyes opened slightly. "R-ro… r-ro to…"

"Roro, it's okay, it's okay," Chip repeated, tears coming to his eyes. He tossed the empty potion bottle aside and grabbed another one, spraying the ghost more. "You'll be okay! I promise! You can do this! Believe in yourself!"

Rotom felt like it would pass out at any moment, but it forced itself into the air, trying to ignore the pain vibrating through its body. Its electric aura glowed a bright blue, then it rocketed into the mimikyu with a high pitched squeal. This time, the Astonish attack sent the mimikyu stumbling backwards, its cloth covered in electric burns. When Mimikyu picked itself back up, the neck of its costume was broken, the head lolling off to the side. It snarled at Rotom, sounding like it was speaking again, but with more fury than before. Rotom panted, struggling to stay in the air as its electric aura wings fluttered.

"Thunder Shock, Roro!" Chip called out. He grabbed another potion and dashed forward to spray the smaller ghost. A couple more of the bruises disappeared, and Rotom's electric wings fluttered faster. Rotom surrounded itself with electricity, then shocked the mimikyu again. The electricity buzzed over the larger ghost's body, arcing and jumping along its cloth. Chip dug in his backpack to grab the next potion when he realized he was staring down at PokeBalls.

The blond grasped one of the PokeBalls, then whirled it at the mimikyu. It twisted around and slammed its wooden tail against the PokeBall, sending it flying through the air. The PokeBall crunched against a tree and fell, broken in two, to the ground. Chip's jaw dropped, but he grabbed another PokeBall. "Shock it again, Roro! Then I'll throw this PokeBall!"

"Ro-to!" Electricity zapped the larger ghost again, an anguished cry coming from the wild pokemon. It was shuddering from the electricity pulsing through its body, whimpered cries coming from it that sounded both furious and desperate. Chip threw another PokeBall at it, and this one struck its target. The mimikyu turned red and sucked into the PokeBall.

Chip clenched his fists as he watched the PokeBall hit the ground, but it shook only once before the mimikyu broke out and reformed. It promptly slammed its wooden tail down on the PokeBall, breaking that one as well. "Damn it!"

Rotom looked at Chip, then shocked the mimikyu again. Before the larger ghost could react, Rotom surrounded itself with swirling energy and slammed into it with another Astonish attack, sending the mimikyu flying back toward a tree. Rotom had slammed into it so hard that it fell back as well, bouncing on the ground and trembling there for a moment before it floated back up. One of its electric wings looked broken as it hung from an unnatural angle, sparking and zapping as Rotom looked at it and winced. Chip grabbed one of his potions and sprayed the electric ghost down, healing its wing injury somewhat and another couple of bruises.

With great effort, the mimikyu pushed itself back up. It shot another Shadow Ball at Chip, but Chip expected it this time and dodged out of the way. Rotom watched him carefully, then shocked the other ghost again. At this point, Chip could tell that Rotom's energy was low, and it was struggling to create an electric charge. The electric ghost was exhausted, but so was the mimikyu. Chip gritted his teeth and threw another PokeBall at the larger ghost. It encapsulated its target, then shook on the ground again. The blond watched the PokeBall, tense, until it broke open again, the angry ghost emerging.

"Seriously?!" Chip shouted.

The mimikyu growled and shot another Shadow Ball at Rotom. Rotom was distracted, looking at Chip after he'd shouted. Chip didn't even have an opportunity to call out a warning as the shadow ball slammed into Rotom and knocked it out of the air. Rotom hit the ground, its aura sparking weakly, but this time it didn't get back up.

Chip's eyes widened as he dashed toward his injured partner. "Roro!"

The mimikyu was sliding off, and for a moment Chip felt torn between chasing after it and throwing another PokeBall, or staying with his Rotom and healing it with potions. It was a momentary lapse of judgement, because a second later he realized there was no way he'd leave Rotom. He scooped the ghost up in his hands, his entire body shaking as he grabbed another potion. The mimikyu disappeared into the forest.

Rotom's eyes fluttered a little as it let out a weak trill. It was barely hanging onto consciousness; it wanted to see Chip's face, that comforted it, and as Chip picked it up it smiled a little through the shudders passing through its body. "…ro…to…to…roto…"

In Chip's heart, somehow he _knew_ what his Rotom was saying. He sprayed the injured pokemon with the potion. "It's okay, Roro. I know you tried. You did such a good job. You did an amazing job, okay? You impressed me so much, going up against a stronger ghost. You've made me so proud."

Rotom struggled to hold onto consciousness. It didn't want to faint and leave Chip vulnerable. That mimikyu could come back, and it had promised to protect Chip. It forced its eyes open, then winced as some of the potion got into its eyes. Its electric arm rubbed at its face, then it tried floating again, managing to suspend itself about an inch above Chip's hand before falling back into its partner's palm again. The potions were numbing the pain, and as the seconds ticked by and Chip kept spraying, Rotom realized the bruises and burns on its body were fading away.

Rotom tried floating again, and Chip pressed a hand to Rotom's head, pushing it down gently so it would stop floating. "Rest a little bit, okay?"

The snap of branches caught his attention as he looked up. Another couple of snaps sounded out there, then silence. He watched the forest where the mimikyu had disappeared, tensely waiting for the ghost to show up again and challenge them once more, but it didn't come. Holding Rotom in his hand, Chip slowly approached the tree where the ghost had slid past. Rotom trilled in warning, but Chip continued edging forward.

About six feet behind the tree, the mimikyu lay in the grass, shuddering. Electricity still arced along its badly burned body, and its eyes were half-closed. As the seconds passed, its eyes closed entirely, though its body still shuddered.

 _We did that,_ Chip realized with a sensation of numbness spreading through him. _We left that mimikyu so hurt and injured that it can't even move… it couldn't even stay conscious..._

For an instant, Chip felt like Lillie was standing beside him, staring at the injured mimikyu with distraught eyes. He could feel her disgust, her anger with Chip, even though she wasn't there. It was a feeling that made him want to sink into the ground and hide forever. Did this make Chip just like the other trainers, leaving a pokemon suffering and burned on the ground, so hurt it couldn't even stay conscious? Would Lillie hate him for this? Would he hate _himself_?

 _I should throw a PokeBall at it again,_ Chip thought. _Then I can take it to the pokemon center. It'll be fine then. But…_ He hesitated as he took a step back, his gaze still locked on the injured mimikyu. _It didn't want to get captured. At least Rotom had chosen to be with me. Is it really right for me to force Mimikyu into a PokeBall when it wanted to be free? Is it right for me to enslave a pokemon that's unwilling to be my partner?_

"Kzzrt?" Rotom looked up at Chip. It was still worried the mimikyu might pop up somehow and attack them again. It didn't have the strength to fight it off—why couldn't Chip just go back to the pokemon center, where they both knew they would be safe?

"Roro, I can't just leave Mimikyu like this," Chip murmured.

The blond dashed back over to his backpack, grabbing the PokeDex and stuffing it inside before he ran back over to Mimikyu. Rotom watched from his arms, a confused expression on its face. Rotom expected Chip to grab a PokeBall, but as the boy dashed toward the mimikyu, there was a rubber sponge in his hand instead—a Paralyze Heal.

The blond dropped to his knees before the fallen ghost pokemon. Rotom moved onto his shoulder, hovering there as it watched its trainer, bewildered. With both his arms free, Chip reached for the fainted mimikyu and gently pulled it into his lap. The arc of electricity burned his skin, but he winced and pressed the rubber sponge to its body, drawing it up and down gently. Mimikyu shuddered, and after a couple of seconds the crackles of electricity disappeared. Chip grabbed a potion and started spraying the ghost down, watching the burns slowly disappear from its cloth. Mimikyu's eyes opened half-way.

Chip closed his backpack. "Don't be scared, Mimikyu… I'm not going to force you into a PokeBall," he said. "If you want to stay free, then I get it. But I couldn't leave you hurt and paralyzed like that…"

Mimikyu growled, moving out of the boy's lap. A shadow claw extended from beneath its disguise, ready to slash at the boy, but then paused. The claw hung in the air for a moment before it reached for Chip's hand, where he still held the paralyze healing sponge. He felt a weird, whispering sensation as the tips of the claws briefed against his hand, then Mimikyu withdrew its claw. It backed up a little bit, then looked at him. It looked at Rotom, then back at Chip, hesitating.

"Roto…" Rotom wasn't sure how to feel about the situation. Mimikyu didn't seem as aggressive now, but Chip had also healed it, making it dangerous again. Rotom felt like it could barely breathe, waiting to see what would happen. It didn't think it could fight Mimikyu a second time.

Chip watched it for a moment, then unzipped his backpack. "Mimikyu… do you want to join us?" He pulled out a PokeBall. The moment Mimikyu saw that, it backed away from Chip, then disappeared into the forest again. Chip felt a sinking feeling in his stomach as he put the PokeBall away. Mimikyu didn't want to join him, but he felt bad about trying to catch it when it was suffering. He'd done the right thing, he told himself. That's all that mattered.

Rotom traveled down Chip's arm and into the backpack, sliding into the PokeDex. It spoke as soon as it emerged. "That thing hazzz some serious problems."

"What do you mean?" Chip asked, standing up. He lifted the backpack and slung it over his shoulder. Rotom floated out of the backpack and drifted around to the front of him.

"It'zzz so angry. When it was talking, it said it would rather die than get caught by a trainer. It said _I_ would be happier dead than with you… It hatezzz trainers…I don't understand why. You've alwayzzz been so good to me..."

Chip stared into the forest where Mimikyu disappeared, then shook his head. He'd been told once that wild pokemon were jealous of trained pokemon, and would attack them out of that jealousy. But the anger that ghost pokemon expressed didn't sound like jealousy. He couldn't imagine what had happened to that wild pokemon to make it feel that way, but he tried to put it out of his mind as he turned back toward where they'd entered the forest. "I guess we should train in the grass like you told me, huh?"

"I think that would be smarter, zzz," Rotom said. "But if you don't mind, could we stop at a pokemon center?"

Chip reached for Rotom, holding the ghost gently in his arms. Rotom only squirmed lightly before it settled in his arms, eyes closing half-way. Chip found himself smiling despite the fact that Rotom had gotten seriously hurt in the battle… maybe because Rotom's morale didn't seem to have suffered from it. It'd been hurt, but he'd taken care of it, and it seemed that Rotom trusted him to keep it safe, just as much as he trusted Rotom to do the same. It was listening better to him now and panicking less during fights. He still remembered seeing that Shadow Ball arcing toward him, and Rotom dodging in front of it to take the blast.

"Chip?" Rotom murmured. The blond looked down at it. "Do you mind if I float on my own, zzzt? Everything achezzz right now."

"Oh, sorry," Chip said, moving his hands. Rotom floated to his side and remained there, its expression still a bit tight from pain. Chip wished he could help Rotom with that, but it seemed like his potions had reached their maximum benefit. He needed a pokemon center and the expertise of Joy to cure Rotom's remaining injuries.

"Thankzzz," Rotom said. "Just 'till all these scratches are healed."

"You were so brave in that battle, Roro… I just wish we could have caught that mimikyu," Chip said with a sigh, putting his arms behind his head. Rotom didn't respond, and after a moment he looked at it. Usually Rotom had a response for anything he said, but it was drifting beside him with an unreadable expression on its face. "What's wrong?"

"It'zzz nothing," Rotom said, waving one arm.

"You can tell me," Chip said.

Rotom frowned. "It'zzz okay. I just have some insecurities I have to work out, zzr."

"What do you mean? Do you mean with your battling? I thought you did really well. Mimikyu is really strong, and you still managed to pull through at the end and make it flee. You didn't lose, Roro. Maybe you didn't win, but against something that much stronger than you, I'm proud of how you did. Honestly."

A little pink flush came to Rotom's screen as it looked away. "It'zzz not about that."

"Then what?" Chip turned toward Rotom, reaching to touch it gently with one hand. "Tell me, please?"

Rotom sighed.

"Please?"

"I didn't… want you to catch the mimikyu… zzr."

Chip blinked in surprise. "What? Why?"

Rotom wiggled out of Chip's grip and floated away from him a little bit, a guilty look on its face. "Because… Mimikyu is very strong… it'zzz better than me at battling… you wouldn't need me anymore as your partner."

"Roro!" Chip exclaimed. He ran up to the ghost pokemon, reaching to pull it out of the air again. His eyes were stretched wide as he stared at Rotom. "I would never, ever, _ever_ replace you. You're my partner. I might get more Pokemon, but you're… you're my partner. Partners are different. They're special. _You're_ special. I'll never replace you."

Rotom nodded, but it wasn't convinced. Just when it thought that it'd moved past those battle insecurities, those worries were creeping up on it again, whispering in the back of its mind. Mimikyu was a much better ghost pokemon to use for battle, so why wouldn't it replace Rotom? Mimikyu could keep Chip safer, it could battle better, it didn't have as many weaknesses, it wasn't afraid to fight… the list went on and on, and Rotom couldn't silence the voice in its head that kept telling it it would be replaced when Chip found a better pokemon. And honestly, it made Rotom want to cry. It adored Chip, it truly loved playing with him and spending time with him, and Chip made Rotom feel so special and cared for. But the feeling of never being good enough just wouldn't go away, even though Rotom had thought it finally had. Would it never escape this horrible feeling? Would this go on forever?

"Listen to me," Chip said. "I'll make you a promise, okay? I won't catch any pokemon until you feel confident you'll always be my partner. I won't catch any if it makes you feel like you're going to be replaced. And when you finally realize I care about you and would never send you away, then tell me, and I'll catch pokemon then. But not before. Okay?"

"I can't ask you to do that, zz-zz-zzz," Rotom said, bewildered. "You need more pokemon to succeed in the island challenge. I know that, zzrt. And we're supposed to fill this PokeDex."

"You're not asking me. I'm promising you that. Because I care about you. We'll meet tons and tons of pokemon together but until you trust me not to replace you, I won't catch any. And if it means we have to work even harder to succeed in the island challenge together, then so be it."

The worst part was, Chip's promise made Rotom feel safer, securer, and it knew that it was selfish for feeling that way. Rotom just wasn't sure what it would do if Chip didn't want it someday. Captive-bred pokemon got attached to their trainers easily, and Rotom was no different. It was terrified of being stored in a PC, of waiting for days, weeks, months, maybe even years for Chip to come back to it. Rotom couldn't shake the image in its head of someday being stored somewhere, wondering if Chip still loved it, or even remembered it existed. Wondering whether the love it felt for its trainer was all that was left of their relationship. Wondering if it had been forgotten.

Sometimes Rotom felt like the only emotion it could feel was fear… but then it remembered how happy it was with Chip… and that only increased its fear of abandonment. Rotom didn't know how to trust, even though it desperately wanted to. .

"I want you to be happy. I never want you to feel like you're not good enough." Chip reached to hold Rotom again. "When you're ready, and you feel like I'm always going to be here for you, tell me. I won't catch a pokemon until then."

"Okay," Rotom said meekly. It still felt bad, and Rotom really wanted to fill the PokeDex it was powering… but they had a lifetime to do that, right? Maybe there would be one day when Rotom could look at Chip and feel nothing but happiness, and not a mixture of happiness and terror that it might some day be forgotten.

"All right." Chip gave Rotom a little hug. "Let's get you to the pokemon center now. You'll feel better afterwards, I promise."


	11. Chapter 11: The Hospital's Secret

**FEARFUL OF THE NIGHT**

By: Cy Mendoza

* * *

 **CHAPTER 11**

THE HOSPITAL'S SECRET

Rotom floated beside Chip as they entered the pokemon center. Chip reached the main desk, finding Joy looking at him a bit suspiciously then looking at Rotom. When it appeared that Rotom wasn't being brought in on its deathbed, she finally relaxed and smiled at him. Sure, Rotom didn't look _amazingly_ healthy, but at least it didn't look horrible, and she liked that Chip had learned his lesson from last time.

"Ah, you're back. That was fast. How can I help you?" she asked.

"Could you heal my rotom? I used a lot of potions, but… they didn't work for all its injuries." Chip reached to hold the PokeDex, and Rotom popped out of it with a little squeak. Chip stored it in his backpack for the meantime.

"Certainly. Could you place Rotom back in its PokeBall? I can heal it up right here on the machine behind me."

Chip looked at Rotom, and it shook its head. "Rotom doesn't really like being in a PokeBall. Can you take care of it like this?"

"Yes, of course. I'll call for a stretcher right away."

Rotom could feel that some parts of its body just weren't right. One of its eyes was blurry, and Rotom suspected that the explosion from Mimikyu's Shadow Ball had caused that. Both of its electric wings hurt, and the one that'd been broken still hurt when Rotom moved it. There were various other scrapes and injuries on its body that the potion hadn't fixed. All in all, Rotom felt grateful to be at the Pokemon Center.

The large doors leading into the PokeHospital opened, and a chansey waddled up, pushing a small stretcher. Chip took Rotom in his hands and gently set it down on the stretcher. Chansey started rolling the stretcher back toward the doors when Rotom let out a squeak of alarm. The chansey immediately came to a halt.

"Is something wrong?" Joy asked. She and Chip watched as Rotom and the chansey briefly conversed, then the chansey turned toward Joy and said something to her. "Hm. Your Rotom seems to be suffering from separation anxiety. It doesn't want to be taken from you and won't go into the hospital without you."

"Er… I thought we weren't allowed?" Chip said. He'd never seen a trainer go into the hospital unless they also worked there.

Joy sighed. "Trainers aren't allowed in the hospital, no… but sometimes we make exceptions if the need is great. If your rotom won't go into the hospital without you, then we'd prefer you come with than let it continue to suffer."

Chip nodded, and approached the stretcher. He ran a hand gently over Rotom's head. "Don't worry. I'll be here the whole time."

The inside of the hospital was far different than Chip would have expected, based on how human hospitals ran. Instead of having separate rooms for all the pokemon, there were stretchers lined up, and helper pokemon ran from stretcher to stretcher, checking on each one of the pokemon and writing on a clipboard. The chansey rolled Rotom's stretcher beside others of the same size. Chip looked curiously over the pokemon that were resting on the stretchers—a pikipek, pichu, and rockruff were Rotom's neighbors, it seemed. The rockruff was alert and watching the others around it. The pikipek was asleep, but looked okay enough—the pichu, however, had a blissey watching it and didn't look very healthy. It looked like it had been starved.

"That pichu had been abandoned," Joy said. Chip jumped a little, not realizing she was behind him. He thought she'd stayed in the front, but she had brought a chair back to the hospital for him to sit down in. He took it gratefully. "When you work in a place like this… you wonder why pokemon trust us at all. That pichu had been locked in a metal cage and left in an empty apartment after its owners moved out. Someone finally heard its cries. It came to us like this… barely holding on and starved. We think it hadn't been fed for two weeks. At least thankfully it had water."

"Seriously?" Chip asked, his eyes wide. "What will happen to it?"

"We'll be doing everything we can to make sure it heals up strong. When it's feeling better, one of us will take it home and take care of it until we can find a trainer that will treat it better than its first one did." Joy's eyes turned kind of dark. "But to be honest, none of us feel very good about adopting out an abused pokemon. Instead, usually one of us adopts it for good."

"How often does this happen?" Chip asked. Were there enough kind Joys in the world to adopt all the pokemon abused by their trainers?

A dark look crossed Joy's face. "More than I wish. But I just wanted to bring you this chair, okay? That blissey over there—her name is Gabriella—is assigned to your rotom. She'll be over in a moment to look over it and make sure everything's in tip-top shape." With that, Joy disappeared back through the hospital doors toward the front of the pokemon center. Chip sat in the seat, feeling like his naive view of humans and Pokemon getting along together had been shattered. He hoped to whatever deity watched over pokemon on this island that the pichu would recover from its mistreatment.

It took about ten minutes before Gabriella, the blissey, came up to the stretcher. Her curls bobbed and her wide smile brightened the room, making even Chip feel a little better when it approached. The blissey giggled pleasantly and leaned over Rotom, holding a clipboard in hand and writing on it. Rotom watched the pokemon curiously, its electric wings fluttering a little. The blissey had brought a cart with her, and was preparing something on that cart. As Chip leaned over, he saw the blissey was mixing a couple of different liquids and something powdered together.

"Blissey, blissey," said the nurse, chattering lightly with Rotom. Rotom nodded a couple of times and Gabriella moved to take some measurements—checking its heart rate, breathing, looking into the eye that was foggy, and so forth. She wrote down each measurement on the chart she was filling out. She continued her light chatter with Rotom, though whatever she was saying—and her voice sounded kind of teasing—must have been embarrassing Rotom, because the ghost blushed a little, then followed up with a couple mumbles of its own.

Gabriella looked up, then reached for something on the cart. She had a small package in her hands and offered that package to Chip. Chip took it, looking over the plastic curiously, then pulled it open. Inside were PokeBeans. What was he supposed to do with these? Surely the blissey didn't intend for him to eat them?

"Blissey," said the nurse pokemon, gesturing a little toward Rotom.

"Oh." Chip took one of the PokeBeans in his fingers and held it out to Rotom. The ghost pokemon's eyes rounded out in surprise and it leaned forward to take a bite from the bean. In the meantime, Gabriella hummed pleasantly to herself as she dipped a brush into the combination ishe'd mixed and started painting it carefully on Rotom's body. Rotom shuddered in pain, letting out a yelp—the concoction must have stung. Almost instantaneously, the bruises that'd stubbornly held on despite Chip spraying them with potions faded away.

Rotom munched on the PokeBean, though it grumbled a little from the residual stinging. Gabriella was preparing a needle and tapped it a little, gesturing again for Chip to give Rotom another PokeBean. It was then that Chip realized the beans were there to distract the patient from whatever the nurse was doing. Chip took another bean out of the package, this next one a pale green color, and held it out to Rotom. Gabriella injected something into Rotom, causing it to squeak in alarm and look back over to what the nurse Pokemon was doing, but it was quickly distracted by PokeBeans again and contentedly chewed on them.

"Blissey, bliss, blissey," the nurse said, clapping her hands in delight. Chip felt a little like she was congratulating him for doing a good job, and he smiled back a little in return.

The blissey then pulled out some sort of magnifying glass with a bright light and leaned over Rotom, looking at its foggy eye. Rotom looked a bit perturbed by this, squirming from the magnifying glass. Gabriella paused a moment, then said something offhand. The ghost responded, a nervous look on its face. The blissey gently put a paw on Rotom to hold it in place, then looked into its eye again with the magnifying glass. Rotom squirmed again, turning away from the light of the magnifying glass, and Gabriella sighed.

"Here, let me try," Chip said. He gently took Rotom in his hands, holding the ghost in one palm while gently stroking its head spike with his fingertips. He could practically feel the tension leaking out of Rotom's form as it relaxed with a mumble. Gabriella waited for a moment, then leaned over to look into Rotom's eye again. Chip felt Rotom tense up, but as he continued stroking it gently, Rotom tolerated the nurse looking into its eye without squirming too much.

After studying the nature of the injury, the blissey turned back toward her cart and started mixing something up again. Chip gently set Rotom down on the bed again, stroking its cheek gently with his thumb. "It's not so bad, is it?" he asked.

"Ro-to…" Rotom mumbled, blinking heavily. The bright light of the magnifying glass made it feel like it was blinded. The only thing that kept it from freaking out was Chip's gentle touch, so it closed its eyes tightly and leaned against its partner's hand, taking comfort from him.

Gabriella's new solution was clear, instead of thick and cloudy like the painted one. She sucked some of the liquid into an eyedropper and carefully squeezed some into Rotom's eye. Rotom flinched as the liquid hit its eye, its electric aura jumping around and hissing as it scorched the sheets. But as the ghost pokemon blinked a few times, Chip realized that the foggy color of its eye had returned back to normal!

"Aww, look at that! It worked really well," Chip said, reaching to pat Rotom's head with his hand. Rotom floated off the stretcher, fluttering its electric wings with a smile. "Is it free to go?" Chip asked Gabriella. "I mean, is there anything else that should be done?"

"Blissey. Bliss, bliss, blissey." The nurse pokemon held a small spray bottle out toward Chip. He took it and looked it over; it had a small label on it that said "spray on electric wings once every thirty minutes for the next two hours."

"Oh. Well, that doesn't sound too difficult," Chip said. He put the spray bottle in his backpack, then leaned down to pick up Rotom. The electric pokemon looked up at him and smiled, then nodded lightly at Gabriella and told her something. The nurse pokemon waved a hand with a laugh and pushed her cart off, moving onto the next patient.

Chip carried Rotom about halfway through the hospital before the ghost started floating and moved to hover over his shoulder. When he exited the hospital, Joy was back at her station near the front of the pokemon center and flashed them a warm smile when they approached.

"So how did it go?" she asked. "Is Rotom feeling better?"

"It was easygoing," Chip said. "No problems at all."

"That's wonderful to hear! We always love it when that's the case—" An alarm blared from inside the hospital. Joy started then stood up, rushing toward the doors. "If you'll excuse me, it appears we have a medical emergency."

Chip found himself tense, wondering what had happened, but he couldn't go into the hospital, not while Rotom no longer needed any medical help. He sat down in one of the waiting chairs for the moment, though, listening to the alarm blaring inside the hospital doors and setting Rotom in his lap. He pulled the prescription potion out of his backpack and—as Rotom offered up each electrical wing—sprayed the ghost pokemon's aura down.

"Roro…" Rotom said with a heavy, contented sigh. It flopped back in Chip's lap, letting its electrical wings rest against his legs, though its wings twitched slightly with each blare of the alarm.

The alarm fell silent. Chip sat up a little bit, waiting to see if anything would happen. When it didn't, he relaxed again, and started stroking Rotom's head with his fingertips. "Do you feel better now?" The ghost nodded excitedly. "Really? You're sure?" he teased, his fingers sliding down to tickle the ghost under one wing. "Really really?"

Rotom squeaked, rolling side to side as it giggled. "Ro-to! Ro-to!"

"Good. I'm glad. I think we should get some malasada now, and then we'll get back to training, okay?" Chip noticed that Rotom didn't seem all that thrilled about the prospect of more training. Honestly, he couldn't blame it. Maybe they could use a break. "Or maybe we'll eat and go to the beach… guess we'll have to see, huh?"

Rotom perked curiously at the mention of the beach. It had never been to a beach before, and even though it was an electric type pokemon instead of a water type, it was still curious. It nodded lightly then closed its eyes and rested while Chip sat there, until Rotom heard the sound of the hospital doors slamming and opened its eyes once again. It floated out of Chip's lap when it saw Joy heading back to her station. Her cheeks were streaked with tears that'd been brushed away, but her eyes were still red rimmed and inflamed. Her gaze seemed dazed, like she wasn't entirely there.

"Joy? Is everything okay?" Chip asked, standing up and approaching the front counter.

Joy didn't say anything, but just from the expression she gave him when he approached, Chip guessed what had happened. Rotom let out a long, sad trill, and Joy wiped her eyes again. "I'm sorry—I'm sorry. You'd think I'd be used to this, but it never gets any easier."

"The pichu…?" Chip whispered. Joy slightly nodded. Behind her, Gabriella slipped out of the hospital doors, a frown on her face. Rotom had never seen a blissey with a frown. It was the happiness pokemon, after all… but maybe under the circumstances, it could understand why she couldn't invoke any happiness right now.

"Blissey…" The nurse pokemon reached into her pouch and pulled out a small, hard-boiled egg, offering to Joy. After a sniffle, Joy took the egg and took small, steady bites from it. The light was returning to her eyes, and slowly she started smiling again. "Bliss… blissey?"

"Thank you, Gabby," Joy said. The smile on her face seemed eerily forced, Chip noticed. But he couldn't really blame her for wanting to medicate herself against the uncountable deaths and torment she witnessed as the pokemon center attendant. Hell, Chip would probably do the same thing, if he didn't quit the job out of sheer emotional overload.

She was strong, dedicated to pokemon, and Chip respected her for that.

* * *

 **A/N:** I was checking my raw writing document and noticed this story is closing in on 100k words. Holy! I've never written a fanfiction this long before. I hope you guys are enjoying this too! I just had a ball in a later chapter introducing some reoccurring Team Skull folks. ;)

Special thank you to WyldClaw, RadBattery, and ShiningAura who have been so sweet to review my newest chapters. It really means a lot to me, guys!


	12. Chapter 12: Rotom VS Litten

**FEARFUL OF THE NIGHT**

By: Cy Mendoza

* * *

 **CHAPTER 12**

ROTOM VS LITTEN

What happened at the hospital was still on Chip's mind as he walked into the malasada shop. His stomach growled and whined for food, but his heart felt heavy. Rotom was back in its PokeDex and floating along beside him, expression dejected. Chip hoped for both their sake that the malasada cheered them both up.

After a brief discussion with Rotom, Chip decided to order a sweet malasada—a pastry filled with strawberry and blueberry fillings and dusted with powdered sugar. He waited at a table with Rotom for the order to arrive, his mind drifting about in his thoughts. Chip had an uneasy feeling that Rotom was thinking about the abandoned pichu and its fate, especially since it had fretted so much about Chip replacing it someday or forgetting it. He hoped to the deity that Rotom wasn't thinking about it too much, but given how he knew Rotom tended to be, it was probably fixated on that.

He, too, couldn't put the thought out of his mind. No wonder some pokemon like Mimikyu didn't like trainers. Hell, after what happened today, he couldn't really blame it. Chip couldn't help but find himself imagining the pichu's betrayal and terror, being left alone in that cage to starve. He wanted so badly for it to have survived, but the world wasn't as pleasant a place as he had thought. He had never been very naive, but with this being his first jaunt into the real world, it shocked him how people could be.

"Roro, um… how are you feeling?" he asked.

Rotom looked up at him. "I'm okay. Just waiting for the malasada, zzzt."

Chip wasn't sure if Rotom was being honest with him or not, but decided not to press the subject for now. He didn't want to end up stressing Rotom out by making it talk about the pichu's death, especially not when it connected so intimately to the fears Rotom suffered. If it wanted to talk about it, Chip would be there, but for now, he just hoped that Rotom wasn't thinking about it at all, even if that was too much to ask for. "Do you want the strawberry ones or blueberry?"

"We should share them both," Rotom said. "How many do you get per zzzerving?"

"I think you get two of each. So we could each have one, huh?"

"Zzzounds good to me!"

About five minutes later, the waitress brought their malasada, fresh from the fryer. The sight of it made Chip's mouth water. He split the dish up into two plates, then handed Rotom's over to it. Rotom popped out of the PokeDex for the moment, then picked up one of the fried pastries with one electric wing and took a bite, then let out a yelp and dropped the pastry, fanning its mouth.

Chip laughed and pushed a glass of water toward Rotom. It grabbed the glass and drank half it down in desperate gulps. "It just came out of the fryer, of course it's hot! Just give it a couple minutes and it should cool down enough to eat."

"Ro-ro," Rotom complained.

"Just think, a couple days ago you couldn't even pick something up without frying it yourself," Chip said, patting Rotom on the head. "You've come a long way with controlling your electricity."

The two munched on the malasada with delight. The restaurant was quiet until someone pushed the door open and let out a hearty yell. "Guess who's home again! The malasada shop will always be my home-away-from-home!"

Chip turned to look over his shoulder. The one who'd been screaming about malasada was a young boy about his age, but with darker skin and dark hair. He had a wide grin on his face, and behind him followed a litten that looked around in the shop curiously. Rotom saw the litten and immediately looked interested, possessing the PokeDex once more and floating up a little so it could see over the table better.

"Wait… the kahuna had mentioned his grandson got a litten," Chip said.

"That'zzz correct! This must be Hau, the island kahuna's grandson! And his litten… I want to take a picture of it so badly, zz-zz-zz!"

Hau glanced around the shop, then noticed Rotom with a gasp. He immediately dashed over, his eyes wide as the smile on his face. "Hey, you have the RotomDex that the professor was talking about! Are you the kid who came here from Kanto?"

"That's me. My name's Chip." He tilted his head. "And you're Hau, right?"

Hau laughed. "Wow, my reputation precedes me! Is it because I'm in the malasada shop? Haha, but you'd be right! Well, I knew it was you because the professor said he only had one RotomDex, and when I went to see if he'd give it to me, he said he'd given it to the kid who came here from Kanto! It's alright though, because I'll still meet tons of pokemon and catch 'em all. That's what we do as trainers, right?"

The litten jumped up onto the table and grabbed one of Rotom's malasada puffs in its mouth. Rotom let out a little cry of protest and chased after it as the litten dashed toward the door. "Hey, wait!" Chip called out.

Hau looked behind himself and laughed. "Oh, yeah, Litten does that. It's a little food thief! But I guess I don't blame it! I think I'd do the same thing if I were a litten. Hey, I'm waiting for my order to be ready, so we could go grab our pokemon and maybe have a little battle. I think they ran out the door." He leaned to the side to see if he could catch a glimpse of his litten, but it had indeed slipped out in an attempt to carry off its prize.

A battle? Chip hadn't fought against a trainer before, if he didn't count those Team Skull jerks.. but Hau seemed nice enough, and Rotom was fully healed, so he nodded. "All right. I'll ask Rotom and see what it thinks, but I'm up for it."

"Great! Let's go find them then! Hopefully the battle's done by the time my malasada is ready!"

The two boys headed out of the shop, looking around to see where their pokemon had gone. Hau took a PokeBall off his belt and tossed it into the sky. A moment later, a pikipek appeared from the data. "Hey, can you go find Litten? It ran off again." The bird chirped and flew off, flying in a wide circle as it looked around for the two missing pokemon.

"This is really unlike Roro," Chip said, feeling nervous. "It doesn't usually like being away from me."

"Malasada can change a person, and pokemon too! Do you really blame it? It probably _really_ wanted that second piece."

Chip was about to speak again as a streak of black and red dashed by. He watched, stunned as Litten jumped onto a fence and finished off the rest of the malasada in its mouth. About one second behind it, Rotom came flying, waving its arms. "Give that back, you—zz-zz-zz—you ATE it! Litten! That wasn't yourzzz!"

Litten stuck its tongue out then started washing its paws.

"I'm sorry about that, Litten has a lot of personality," Hau said. "I'll give you one of my malasada for your Rotom, okay? By the way, my grandfather told me you picked a popplio. Where is it?"

Rotom immediately stopped complaining about the malasada when it heard that question. It seemed that Hala hadn't filled his grandson in with what happened, or they just hadn't seen each other lately. Hau was still smiling, but after a couple of seconds he seemed to realize he'd said something very, very wrong, and that smile died into a frown.

"Um, what's wrong? Should I not have asked that?"

"It's a long story," Chip said quietly. "I don't have Popplio anymore, Rotom is my partner."

"Your PokeDex is your partner?" Hau looked bewildered, scratching his head. "Well, okay! I guess that makes sense! Rotom is a pokemon after all, right? So I guess you could have that as a partner if you want."

Chip glanced at Rotom, then noticed Litten was crouched on the fence, its rear end wiggling a little as it stared intently at Rotom. A moment later, the cat pokemon jumped on Rotom, knocking it out of the air. Rotom yelped as it hit the ground. Litten looked down at the ghost then turned in a tight circle and lay down on its screen. Rotom flailed its arms and feet, making some sounds of protest, which were muffled by Litten laying on the audio speakers on its front.

"Awww, they're already friends!" Hau said. His pikipek dropped down from the skies and landed on his shoulder. "Hey, so did you want to battle? How many pokemon do you have?"

"Just the one," Chip said, watching Rotom flail with amusement. After unsuccessfully struggling to get Litten off, Rotom separated from the PokeDex, its electric wings fluttering rapidly in annoyance.

"Oh. One? Really? I have three, but that wouldn't be a very fair fight, so how about we just have Rotom and Litten battle? Nothing too serious, just for fun!"

"Are you okay with that, Roro?" Chip asked. Rotom looked at him and huffed, buzzing in a circle before it glared at Litten. The cat pokemon just stuck its tongue out at it, then started licking the front of the PokeDex. Rotom looked absolutely _offended_ by that, darting around in frustration and letting out little annoyed chirping sounds. "I think Roro's ticked off by Litten… so I don't think it'll mind a battle. Let's get a little further from the malasada shop though, so we don't end up damaging anything."

"Great idea!" Hau said. He gestured for Litten to follow him as he headed more into the street, and the cat pokemon looked at him for a moment, as if contemplating disobedience, then padded away from the PokeDex.

Chip chuckled a little to himself as he leaned down to pick up Rotom's home, wiping some of the saliva off the front of the screen. Rotom pointed with one of its electric wings then flew in the direction Hau was going. Beside the street, there was a patch of short grass, perfect for a trainer battle. It was well lit with street lights as well, which Chip appreciated. After deciding how much money they'd put up in a bet over the outcome (which was equivalent of two malasadas), Hau grinned and pointed forward.

"All right, Litten! Let's make Chip pay for our malasada!"

Chip rolled his eyes a little as Rotom darted out in front of him. He'd never seen Rotom get so irritated before, but maybe it just thought Litten was an asshole. The cat pokemon was sitting in front of Hau with an amused look on its face, head tilted slightly as it watched Rotom, as if the presence of the ghost didn't disturb it at all. Rotom puffed its cheeks, its electric aura arcing greater and sparking around its body.

"Start off with Thunder Wave, Roro!" Chip called out.

"Litten, use Lick! Rotom's a ghost-type pokemon, so you'll deal double damage to it!"

Rotom shot into the air and blasted electricity at Litten. The cat pokemon's fur puffed up in static, then it stumbled a little bit, trying to get its bearings again. Now paralyzed, Litten struggled to get into a pouncing position.

"Uh… maybe not Lick! Okay, use Ember!" Hau said, rubbing the back of his head. Litten took a deep breath, arched its back, then shot a fireball at Rotom. The ghost-type pokemon darted to the side, watching as the fireball landed in the grass and started to smolder.

"Thunder Shock, Roro," Chip said. "And keep an eye on the fireballs, they're coming a little faster than you normally move!"

Rotom nodded, electricity arcing out of it and electrocuting the cat pokemon. Litten hissed, then shot a couple fireballs at Rotom in quick succession. The ghost managed to dodge the first and the second, but the third hit it in the face, knocking it back. A burn—deep red in color—had formed on Rotom's head spike, making it whimper in pain.

"Good job, Litten! Keep using Ember until you knock it down!" Hau jumped a little in excitement, punching a fist into the air. "Free malasada! That's a great way to start the day! I can't wait!"

Start the day? It was night! "The battle's not over yet, Hau!" Chip called out. "Roro, use Confuse Ray! Then follow that up with a Thunder Shock!"

Rotom had never used Confuse Ray before. It jittered around a little bit, then took aim and shot a swirling array of stars at Litten. Litten's next fireball dissolved in its mouth as it tried to avoid the stars, but it couldn't move fast enough when paralyzed, and the attack hit it in the face. Litten shook its head, stumbling around in confusion as it tried shooting fireballs at Rotom, but kept missing.

Remembering Chip's instructions, Rotom zapped Litten with Thunder Shock again. Litten yelped, then made a large fireball in its mouth, but it backfired in an explosion and the cat pokemon fell to the ground. A moment later, Litten's body dissolved into red data and returned to the PokeBall on Hau's belt. The dark-haired boy stared in shock, then started to laugh.

"Wow! I can't believe you managed to inflict two status conditions on my litten! That's crazy. Man, you really know what you're doing, don't you? Hey, I have this Burn Heal here, if you need it— I'm gonna run to the pokemon center before the malasada's ready, but I'll meet you back at the restaurant, okay? It won't take long! Nurse Joy loves me!" Hau dashed over to Chip and handed him a small container of burn healing lotion, then waved and dashed back toward the pokemon center. "Don't start without me!"

Rotom floated back over to Chip with a grin on its face. Its burn hurt, but it had beaten a litten! Rotom was over the moon; it just couldn't comprehend that it'd knocked a litten out. Litten was as strong as a popplio, and it'd spent so long putting itself down for not being as good as Popplio as a partner to Chip. Sure, Hau didn't seem like a very strong trainer, but it didn't matter. It beat a litten! It was hard staying still while Chip applied the burn heal to its head spike when it was so excited, but the moment the burn faded, Rotom blasted off in jagged movements, chirping in happiness.

"Hey," Chip said, laughing at the way Rotom was squealing as it zig-zagged around him. "Come back here!" He held the PokeDex up, and Rotom returned, zapping into the machine.

Rotom looked down at itself briefly to make sure all the litten slobber was off its screen, then waved its arms in excitement. "I beat a litten! I beat a _LITTEN!_ Zzz-zzz-zzz!"

"You did a really good job too," Chip said with a smile. He could feel the pride and confidence radiating off Rotom, and seeing it so happy made him feel amazing. He wanted Rotom to feel confident in itself, and he hoped this victory would be enough to boost its spirits. They still needed to challenge the Verdant Cavern, and Chip was starting to feel like Rotom might be successful against the totem pokemon. Given that it was normal type and normal attacks couldn't strike Rotom, he was getting more and more thrilled about their upcoming challenge.

Chip tilted his head, noticing something as he looked at Rotom. The ghost blinked and stared back at him. "What? Zzr?"

"You have injuries on the PokeDex," he said, mystified. There were scratches on the screen and scuffs, as well as what looked like singe marks. Even one of its arms had a crack in it. Rotom looked down at itself, then separated from the PokeDex. As soon as the ghost left the PokeDex, it looked pristine again, untouched by the damage. "I guess you have a couple injuries I need to fix up. Look, there's a couple on the side of your head, and a little on your… body. I think that's your body."

The boy reached into his backpack and pulled out both potions—the prescription one, since it'd been thirty minutes since they'd been in the pokemon center, and a regular potion for injuries. He sprayed Rotom down with the regular potion first, pleased to see all of the injuries disappearing, then gestured for Rotom to show him its electric wings. The ghost buzzed closer to him and held one out for him to spray, then the other.

"Are you still hungry?" Chip asked, moving back in the direction of the restaurant.

Rotom re-entered the PokeDex as soon as it was healed, then shrugged. "I wouldn't mind having more malasada, but if that litten stealzzz it again… I might have to beat it up _again_ , zzrt!"

Chip laughed, waving a hand as he headed back into the restaurant. His table had been cleared off, but that was all right because he had finished everything he had bought. He grabbed a table again and waited there for Hau to return, Rotom floating beside him. It picked up one of the menus and looked at it while Chip kicked his feet. "Do you feel stronger after fighting the litten?"

Rotom lowered the menu. "I don't think so, zzz. I don't feel any stronger, but maybe…"

"Hmm," Chip said. "Maybe tomorrow we'll try some training again. For now, eating and going to the beach sounds all right… the beach is pretty well lit… and maybe Hau will come with us too."

The ghost looked annoyed. "Great… that meanzzz Litten will come too!"

"That's a good thing. Maybe Hau and I can train together," Chip said, feeling a rush of warmth. Fighting against Hau was so much less anxiety-ridding. He could trust Hau wouldn't hurt a pokemon in a battle beyond what it could handle, and Chip felt like they were a fair match. That helped too.

About five minutes later, Hau strolled into the restaurant with his litten right behind him, the same wide smile on his face as before. He glanced around to find Chip, then waved when he spotted him. "Hey! I'm back, and I'm ready to eat some malasada! Did you miss me?"

Chip laughed, waving one hand in greeting. "Should I?"

"What? Aww, come on! I owe you and Rotom a malasada, right? That's a good enough reason to miss me." The dark-skinned boy carried a platter of pastries over to Chip's table. Hau's order was ready, and he happily tucked into it the moment he sat down. There were five of them on his platter, and one by one his pokemon came out of their balls to grab one. It appeared that Hau had a litten, a pikipek, and… a pichu.

Rotom and Chip exchanged glances as the pichu giggled and reached to grab one of the malasadas on the platter. Hau smiled at the two and held the extra one out. Chip reached to take it, cautious of it being too hot, but it looked like the pastries had been done before Hau returned to the shop. It was hot but not so much that it burned his fingers. He split it in half, then offered half to Rotom. The ghost slipped out of the PokeDex, leaving it deactivated on the table, and picked up the malasada with a delighted chirr.

"Hey, can I see your PokeDex while your rotom's out of it?" Hau asked with a mouthful of pastry. Chip shrugged then nodded, and the boy reached to take the PokeDex. Without Rotom inside it, it was dark and lacked the spike at the top as well as the appendages and feet. Hau looked it over with a chuckle, taking another bite of his pastry, then set it back down. "It's pretty cool. So what do you think of Rotom? Is it a good partner?"

"Yup! The best," Chip said, reaching to pat Rotom's head as it munched on the pastry. Rotom looked up at him and grinned.

Chip finished up the pastry and licked his lips. Now that he'd eaten two of them and half of Hau's, he was no longer hungry—honestly, he was feeling a little uncomfortably full. Taking a nap seemed appealing when he was full like this, but he knew he should go to the beach, as a little exercise after eating was better than lethargy. "Hey, Hau… Roro and I were thinking of going to the beach after this. Um, maybe you'd be interested in coming with us?"

Hau blinked and looked up. He finished the bite of malasada in his mouth then grinned widely. "Oh yeah, I'd love to go with you! Maybe we can find some pokemon on the beach, or even in the water. Do you have a rod? I wish I had a fishing pole, man…"

"I don't, sorry," Chip said. "But I've never been to a beach before, so even just going is nice."

"It is. I live in Iki Town, so I've always been pretty close to the beach," Hau said, stuffing another pastry in his mouth. "Mmm… hey, Chip, have you challenged the Verdant Cavern yet? I was thinking of doing it tonight, but if we're going to the beach, I can always do it tomorrow. It shouldn't be too hard for my litten, but it's my first trial, so… I'm a little worried about how I'll do at it. Maybe we could even do it together?" Hau glanced at Litten. The cat pokemon had finished its malasada and was looking at the pichu's with interest. The tiny mouse pokemon hadn't finished its malasada, and when it noticed the way Litten was looking at it, it sparked and growled, pulling the pastry closer to it.

"I haven't yet, though I met Captain Ilima earlier," Chip said. "Are we allowed to take trials together?"

"...I guess we'd have to ask Ilima, huh? I dunno... Oh! What'd you think of him?" Hau said with a grin. "Everyone who meets Ilima thinks he's gorgeous. Doesn't matter if you're a boy or a girl! They all do!"

Chip felt his face growing uncomfortably hot. "I… um… I didn't think about it…"

Rotom finished its malasada, then looked at Chip and laughed. "Ro-to-to! Roto!"

"Shush," Chip said, putting a hand over Rotom's mouth. "Honestly, I didn't… really notice? But Rotom and I were battling a fearow that was too much for us, so… I wasn't… really focused on anything but making sure Rotom was okay. It got really injured."

"Ah, right, I would be too," Hau said. There was a brief frown on his face before it was replaced with a smile. "Well, you'll see him again at the Verdant Cavern! And hopefully nothing goes wrong when you do, so you can see what I mean! Haha! But don't worry, since I'll be there with you, I'll make sure you don't forget!"

Chip wondered if Hau enjoyed teasing everyone who laid eyes on Ilima. It didn't seem like Hau was particularly affected by Ilima's apparent charm. Still, he quickly searched for a new topic in hopes that Hau would stop teasing him. "So your grandfather is the kahuna?" Chip asked.

"Yup! I have pretty big shoes to fill… but I'm excited about it too, you know? I'll take the island challenge and make my grandfather proud. It might take me a while, but I'm not in any hurry. It's not like I'm racing you, right?" Hau laughed.

"I think we'll be taking our time too, so I get where you're coming from. Oh… speaking of the challenges, do you know where Ilima lives? Since we have to ask him about taking the trial together."

"Oh, yeah! If you go toward the pokemon center, then head left, you'll be on the street that Ilima lives on. It's the house with the pool, so you can't miss it. He's super nice, so he'll definitely be happy to help! Of course, I'll come with you too! Since I wanted to show him my litten... maybe he could tell me whether he thinks it's ready."

"That's why I want to see him also, so I can see if he thinks Rotom is ready," Chip said, wiping his face off with a napkin.

"Yeah…. Hey, what do you say about another round of malasada before we hit the beach?"

* * *

 **A/N:** Did you enjoy Hau's introduction? Let me know in the comments!

Also, if you're interested in a cameo in this story, let me know! Post a review with some information about your OC - personality, appearance, why they'd be in Alola, and whatever partner Pokemon is closest to them.


	13. Chapter 13: Water Resistance

**FEARFUL OF THE NIGHT**

By: Cy Mendoza

* * *

 **CHAPTER 13**

WATER RESISTANCE

"Stay here with Hau, okay?" Chip said, patting Rotom's screen. "I'm just going to run inside the clothing shop and grab some swim trunks. I'll be back in a moment."

"Zzr… okay," Rotom said. As Chip dashed into the store, Rotom turned toward Hau and looked him over. Rotom liked Lillie a bit more, as she was more calm, but it was certain Hau would grow on it too. As long as that litten behaved itself, at least.

Hau plopped onto the bench outside the clothing store and stretched. "Man! My internal clock's all messed up now. I keep waking up in the afternoons and staying awake all through the night! Do you and Chip train at night too? I like it because it's so much cooler than the daytime. The daytime's kinda hot, don't you think? When it's that hot, I just want to sit in the malasada shop and eat until it cools down in the evening!"

Rotom's mouth was a little 'o' of surprise. It didn't feel like it could even get a word in edgewise when Hau was talking. The dark-haired boy seemed to jump from topic to topic before Rotom could even respond. "Zzz… Chip doesn't like the night much."

"Oh? Why's that? Does he wake up early? I guess if I were really tired at night, I wouldn't want to be training either." Hau ran his fingers through Litten's fur. The cat was laying on his lap, its legs curled under its body so that it looked like a small cat loaf. It purred, tail swishing back and forth from the affection. Hau moved his fingers under the cat's chin, and Litten leaned its head back in delight. "Hey, are you able to translate what my litten says?"

Once again, Rotom felt like it wasn't given a chance to respond. But now that it thought about it, Chip probably didn't want Rotom talking about his anxieties anyway. "I can, zzt."

"That's awesome! Man, Chip is so lucky to have you! When he gets more pokemon, if they need anything, they can just tell you and you could tell Chip. I'm so jealous! I wish I had a RotomDex." Hau leaned back a little bit, shifting, and Litten looked up with a grumble of annoyance. It stretched in his lap, then turned in a circle and lay down again.

Chip scuttled out of the shop with a new bag in hand. He dashed up to his waiting friends and smiled. "I'm ready! Are you?"

"Sure am!" Hau said, hopping up, much to Litten's disappointment. The cat jumped off his lap with an undignified meow. "Let's get going! Which beach do you want to go to? The one that's right here by the city? Or a different one, further south? Further north?"

"Umm, let's see." Chip knew that he wanted a beach that was close to the city, one that was well lit. He reached to pull Rotom out of the air, holding the ghost in his hands as he brought up the map. He dragged his finger up and down the screen, scrolling through the area around Hau'Oli City's shoreline. Rotom squirmed in his grip.

Hau laughed as he looked over Chip's shoulder. "Look at your RotomDex! It wiggles around when you touch it!"

Chip zoomed in on a beach at the intersection between two large streets. That looked like a good place—it was right next to the marina, where he was certain there would be even more lights. Chip hadn't expected hanging out with Hau would make him feel safe, but having another trainer with him did help. "Roro's ticklish."

"What? Really?" Hau asked. "Lemme see!"

Rotom eyed Hau cautiously. "I'm not—" But Chip had already handed the PokeDex over to Hau, an amused look on his face. Hau grinned as he held onto the ghost tightly and tickled the underside of its little feet. Rotom squeaked, kicking its feet frantically as it flailed its arms, almost hitting Hau in the face. "ZZZT! HAU!"

"Wow! You were right!" Hau laughed, letting go of Rotom. Rotom floated out of his grip, crossing its arms as it blushed. "I like your partner, Chip. It's funny. Hey, is Rotom going to go swimming too? Is it safe for it to swim?"

"I'm not swimming," Rotom said. "I'm not waterproof, zzzrr, the sea water would damage the data inside the PokeDex."

"You could try outside of the PokeDex," Chip said with a shrug. Rotom looked rather unconvinced by that. "But that's only if you feel like you could control your electricity enough. I don't want to get shocked when swimming with you."

"Oh, that's a good point, isn't it?" Hau said, scratching his head. "By the way, if you see any water pokemon, train your rotom with them! They're weak to electric pokemon. My pichu is gonna be swimming with me. Litten doesn't like water."

"I don't blame it, zzt," Rotom mumbled. "That'zzz about the only thing we agree on."

Litten's ears perked up, and it blew a smoke ring at Rotom. As Rotom coughed and waved the smoke away, the cat looked pleased with itself.

"This is the beach that I thought would be good to swim at," Chip said, pointing to the beach he'd found earlier on Rotom's map. Rotom kept a little distance from Hau, watching his hands warily. Chip chuckled a little. "What do you think?"

"Sounds great! Let's go!" Hau said, waving for Chip to follow as he dashed off.

The entire pathway to the beach was lit by streetlights, and even though Chip could see a black night sky above him, he still felt himself smiling. Maybe it was because he was with Hau, but having another pokemon trainer near him really did make him feel safer. He'd underestimated Hau—after all, Hau had three pokemon, so maybe he was used to battling with all of them. In any event, Chip hoped his anxiety would stay at bay. It was in his stomach like a stone, but not so distracting that he couldn't still smile.

When they reached the beach, Chip felt a swell of excitement. "I guess we gotta change first, huh?"

"I always wear my swim trunks under my shorts!" Hau said with a laugh as he pulled off his shirt. "But the bathroom's over there if you need to change. I'll stay here with the pokemon!"

Chip chuckled as he headed into the bathroom. He _almost_ felt bad for leaving Rotom with Hau, but he figured Rotom could avoid him well enough if it wanted to; Rotom was notoriously fast, after all. It only took him a couple minutes to change, and he was surprised to find Rotom floating close to Hau as the dark-haired boy sat on the concrete bordering the beach, playing with his litten. Hau's swim trunks were gold, apparently.

Picnic tables littered the beach, some of them with umbrellas over them, some of them not. Since it was the evening, it didn't seem to matter, so Chip set his backpack down on the nearest picnic table, then kicked off his shoes and set them on the ground beside the table. The sand felt so warm and soft on his feet. He plopped down in it and ran his fingers through the grains, enjoying the warmth emanating from it. Hau tossed his PokeBalls out, releasing his pichu and pikipek.

"I've never been to a beach before either," Rotom said, digging one of its arms into the sand. "It'zzz so warm!"

"Come on!" Hau said, running toward the water. His pichu followed after with a delighted squeak. "Let's go swimming!"

The two boys splashed into the water with excited laughter. Rotom followed them, but hung back when it got close to the water. Pichu and Pikipek stayed in the shallows, running along the edge where the water met the sand as they played with each other. Chip scuttled out into water up to his neck, enjoying the warmth that surrounded him despite the sting of salt against his healing wounds. The waves were gentle here, stirring him up and down without the worry of pulling him under. He turned toward Hau, then yelped when the other boy splashed him. Chip laughed and splashed back. "Hey!"

Chip ducked underwater, then opened his eyes. The salt stung, but the water was beautiful, even at night. The street lights provided enough light that he could see Hau just a couple feet away from him, as well as the start of the coral reef maybe fifty feet out. Chip didn't want to get too far out to sea, as he wasn't a strong swimmer, but he was enjoying where he was well enough. Hau swum over to him, then gave him a light push. Chip laughed and pushed back, then swam back toward the shore. He plopped down on the shoreline, laying there as Rotom floated above him.

"Did you enjoy the water?" Rotom asked.

"Sure did," Chip said with a smile. He scooted back a little more then lay down again, looking up at the night sky. The anxiety in his stomach was melting away into contentment as he looked up at the stars. He could even see the constellation that looked like a bulbasaur, just like Lillie had said. He wished Lillie was here too, that the three of them could play on the beach like no dangers existed in the world. "It'd be wonderful..."

"Hm? What would?" Rotom asked, tilting slightly.

"I was just thinking about Lillie. How it'd be nice if she was here too."

Rotom blinked, then smiled. "Next time, we should invite her! Zzz-zzz!"

"We really should." Chip was about to head back into the water to chase Hau when something flopping on the shoreline caught his attention. It was a small blue and gray fish, tangled in a fishing line. Chip frowned a moment, then moved over there, crouching down beside the small creature.

"It'zzz a wishiwashi," Rotom said, floating beside his shoulder. "The small fry pokemon. Though it's weak individually, it has learned to team up with others of itzzz kind to become stronger. I wonder what that means? Zzzt?"

"I don't know," Chip said. He gently picked up the flailing fish. "Wishiwashi, calm down… I'll help you."

The fish squirmed in his grip, repeating its name frantically as it tried to free itself. Chip tried to hold it tightly enough that he could unwind the fishing line, but not so tightly to hurt it. When he glanced out at the water, he saw that a number of wishiwashi were at the surface, darting around and watching him. There were bright red lines on the fish's scales where the line had cut into it. Chip found himself wincing at how painful they looked. As he finished unwinding the line and tossed it further up on the beach, he brought the wishiwashi over to the water and gently set it down. "Don't swim off, okay? I'll get a potion so you can feel better. Just wait right there."

Chip wasn't sure whether the fish would listen to him or not, but he made the trek back to his backpack to get a potion anyway. When he returned, the fish pokemon was waiting for him, sticking its head out of the water. The others of its kind had clumped near it. Chip looked at them cautiously, then sat down about waist-deep in the water. The wishiwashi came over to him, and he gently lifted it up and started spraying it. The little fish squirmed, but the angry red lines disappeared from its body, and it flipped back into the water with a happy squeak.

"There," Chip said. "Don't you feel better now?"

"Wishi!" It nodded, then turned and disappeared back into the ocean, along with its school.

Out in the water, Hau waved at him. "Chip! Come out here, I found the edge of the coral reef! It has a bunch of luvdiscs and alomomola around it! You gotta see this!"

"You coming, Roro?" Chip asked, wading out into the water until he started to paddle out to where Hau was.

Rotom shook its head. "I don't want to damage the PokeDex, zzt."

"Suit yourself, buddy. At least you have Litten to talk to, huh?" Chip laughed as he swam out further than Rotom was willing to go.

The two boys floated out on the waves as Rotom watched from the shore. It badly wanted to go join Chip, but the water made it nervous. It honestly didn't know if its casing was waterproof or not, as no one had ever told it, but it was feeling lonely left out on the shore. Sure, Litten was there, but Rotom didn't really want to talk to Litten.

Finally, Rotom decided it would go join Chip. All it had to do was stay above the waves, and it wouldn't have to worry about whether it was waterproof or not. Rotom looked at the water under it as it floated out toward Chip. The water grew darker the further they went from the shoreline, and it hoped Chip wasn't having trouble with all the darkness. From what Rotom could see, though, Hau had lifted Chip's mood, and the blond was laughing and swimming after the other boy. Rotom felt a twinge of jealousy that someone else could make Chip smile.

"Wishiwashi! Wishiwashi!"

Rotom backed up as the school of wishiwashi jumped out of the water, then landed back with a splash. They darted one after another, sometimes schooling closer together, sometimes fanning out. Rotom felt its circuits tingling with the desire to scan the fish, but they had disappeared into the water already.

The ghost turned to follow Chip again when something _enormous_ burst out of the water.

"SHARPEDO!" The massive shark leapt from the depths, slamming into Rotom. The ghost felt the sudden explosion of pain, almost knocking it out with the force of the impact, then felt its metal body hitting the water.

Rotom began to sink. Dazed, Rotom didn't react for a couple of seconds as it watched the light above disappear. It sunk further and further, until Rotom realized what was going on and tried to float up. But its floating ability didn't work in the water like it did in the air, its metal body was simply too heavy to move through that much resistance, and Rotom found itself silently sinking further and further into the darkness.

An uncomfortable sensation filled Rotom's body, a sensation of water leaking into the cracks in its shelling. Those cracks hadn't been there—it'd gotten them from the sharpedo slamming into it—and now it was taking on water fast. Its circuits started to misfire. The screen went blue, audio speakers making inaudible high pitched noises that were drowned out by the water. The malfunctioning machine was scrambling Rotom's concentration.

 _ERROR._ It had to get out. _ERROR. ERROR._

It had to get out—Rotom separated from the machine.

The area around it electrified. Wishiwashi darted away from the area in droves, and the rest of the sea life avoided the area where Rotom's electricity pulsed through the water as well. Rotom tried to fly forward, but it couldn't. Its flying abilities didn't work underwater; there was still too much resistance. Rotom flailed its electric arms in an attempt to swim, but the necklace attached to its PokeDex entangled around it, dragging it down with the metal casing. Rotom struggled to turn its body immaterial to get away from the necklace, but panic consumed every sense, panic screamed in its mind. Rotom continued to sink, bubbles streaming out of its mouth from its silenced cries for help, until the light above disappeared and everything shrouded it in darkness.


End file.
